


Me And My Broken Heart

by LambertStarr19



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2018-01-21 22:31:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 39,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1566380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LambertStarr19/pseuds/LambertStarr19
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Wilder ends a troublesome relationship with his girlfriend of 3 years after discovering her lies, constant cheating and manipulation. Will he find true love in the arms of the person he least expected or be left out in the cold once again?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Beginning of The End

**Author's Note:**

> This is the new version of a story I'd started writing on April 20, 2014 under another pseudonym, of which I still had the first three chapters but rather than just copying and pasting them, I decided to just write a story with the same name and similar plot, but changing it entirely just because I don't want to be accused of being a new author on this site plagiarizing a story that in reality was mine. I lost my password and the email address with which I'd made that other pseudonym, and I hope you like this new version better than the other one. Thank you for your support, as always. I love you guys and I am doing this solely for you, or should I say, "For your entertainment."

Marissa Ainsworth, age twenty-eight, and John Wilder, age thirty-one had a three-year-relationship. In these three years, they'd pretty much been through everything together. Marissa had broken up with John at least five times, citing being in love with another man, or that what they were going through at the moment was too tough to handle, or just that she needed time to 'find herself' and she didn't know how long it would take to get herself back together. Every time that Marissa and John were on a so-called break, Marissa would see another guy, and John knew nothing of this. Some breaks lasted longer than others, but now there was a surefire and palpable consequence of the last break from Marissa's relationship with John. Marissa and John had slept together three months ago, and she'd taken a three-day-long-break from John around that time, but this time, without letting John know. She just cheated on him with his best friend, Seth, during those three days John had been away visiting his mother in Wichita Kansas. Marissa and John lived in Boston, Massachussetts. When John returned from his trip, Marissa acted like everything was fine and dandy. This time, John believed he'd gotten it right and that, if they ever broke up again, it would take a longer time for them to do so, the next time around. Now, Marissa was three months pregnant and she had no idea if John or Seth was the father of the baby. All she knew was that the baby was healthy as could be, and that she wanted to be with John. She'd decided it was about time she'd stop playing games. 

Every time Marissa and John were apart, John would be alone, that is, without a partner. In these last three years, John had decided to settle down and Marissa was the one woman he had eyes for, no other. She'd lied to him too many times to count but he loved her, so he'd forgive her every time she did it. There was a problem, though. John had been forgiving to the five formal girlfriends he'd had in the past. He'd been sexually active since the age of sixteen, and all that time, he'd only had formal girlfriends, no one-night-stands or commitment-free relationships, even once. He just believed that people should be treated like people, not like bathroom tissue, and even if both parties involved agreed that this would be nothing but a one-night-stand, this is how John saw one-night stands, as if both parties were bathroom tissue. John's best friends said he loved like a woman in some ways. They'd say that when he loved, he was passionate, committed, and literally gave his all. Three of John's real best friends, who had never betrayed him like Seth had, or whose lies had never been this devastating, they knew the truth, but they hadn't told John what Seth did to him because they feared that John would believe that they were just trying to turn him against his girlfriend and his best friend, his right hand. Today, they knew they would lose John either way, just for not telling him the truth, if John found out the truth from a stranger or an enemy, but that was the price they had to pay for committing this lie of omission that would change John's life forever. All they could do about this was to hope that John would forgive them one day. John never held rancor against anyone for decades, but some acts of betrayal would take him longer than others to forgive and get over completely, depending on how earth-shattering they were. Only time would tell if John would forgive Marissa for this.

One friend that hadn't been committing this lie of omission, but that loved John just the same, was thirty-five-year-old, American Idol Season Eight Runner up and today renowned superstar, Adam Lambert, one of the newest singing sensations alongside Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus, just to name a few. The night before, Adam had seen Marissa bringing a guy he'd never seen before into the house, another guy Marissa had started cheating on John with just three weeks ago. On top of that, Adam had just found out the truth about Marissa, John and Seth, that Seth could be the true father of this baby that John had known about since Marissa was three weeks pregnant. Adam had had enough with the lies. He'd never been in love with John, and his love for John was different than his love for Sauli, Brandon or Drake had been, his ex-boyfriends, but the love was just as intense. It could be said that Adam loved John just as much as he loved his own brother, Neil Lambert. Adam and Neil's fraternal relationship hadn't always been a walk in the park, but the two brothers cared about one another a lot. John had been Adam's best friend for five years. They'd met at one of Adam's gigs during his American-Idol days outside of LA and had kept a close relationship since. Adam didn't live in Boston, but he'd visit it every time he was on a respite from his career, being the time when he was recording an album or he'd just finished one of his tours. With thick tears running down his eyes, Adam arrived at John's house that day. Both Marissa and John were home that day, but even if Marissa pummeled him, Adam just had to tell John the truth. Adam didn't know that anyone else but Marissa and Seth knew the truth, and 'que sera sera', Adam was more than ready to get this off his chest that had been eating at him since last night. 

Choked up, Adam knocked on the door.

John opened the door. He had an empty mug in his hand. He'd just finished drinking coffee from it, coffee he'd made fifteen minutes before. "Oh, my God, Adam, what's wrong?"

Adam had his hand in the pocket of his pants, grabbing his iPhone, where he had all of the evidence of the truth he was about to reveal. Adam wasn't the person to just say something to someone he cared about unless he had solid evidence to back up his words, especially when it was something this serious. "Is Mari home?"

"Yes, she is," John said while Adam walked in, and then he closed the door behind Adam. "She's in our room. You wanna talk to her?"

"No. I came to talk to you."

They sat down in the sofa, but considerably far apart from each other. 

John asked, "Is it so bad you wanted to make sure she wasn't anywhere around here for you to tell me, Adam Mitchel?"

Without saying another word, Adam pulled out his phone and pressed a few buttons to access his photo gallery, where the picture of the other guy entering John's home was. He tapped on the picture and when the guy could be seen, Adam said, "Is this a friend or relative of yours or hers?"

John said, looking at the picture closely, "I've never seen this guy before in my life! Who the fuck is he?" but he said it too loud.

Marissa came out to the living room from her bedroom in a matter of seconds. "What's wrong?" she said, walking closer to them. "What is it, Adam?"

John took Adam's phone from Adam's hand, showed the picture to Marissa and asked her, eyes narrowed and harsh tone in his voice, "Who is this bozo?"

Marissa's mouth hung agape and her breath started becoming a little erratic. "John, I can explain."

John handed Adam's phone back to him and got up. "What's there to explain?"

Adam grabbed John's arm in an effort to get him to sit back down. "John..."

Marissa said, shaking, "J-john, I...I..."

Adam said, "She's pregnant, John."

John snapped, "Yes, Adam, I know she is. What I don't know is whose the baby is."

Marissa slapped John across the face making him look momentarily to the other side, saying, "How dare you?" and then covered her face with both hands, crying.

John turned his face to look her right in the eyes again. "How dare I? How dare I? No, bitch, how dare YOU?"

She said, sobbing, "Oh, no, not again."

Adam got up, and his chest was heaving. He started sweating and the look on his face was that of someone that had a gun held in their temple. 

John screamed, "Not again what? What do you mean by not again?"

She screamed, "This is not happening again! You are not screaming at me and calling me names again! Not now! Stop! I am pregnant with your baby, John!"

John screamed, "Are you?"

Marissa growled, "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

John said, "I mean are you pregnant with my baby or this guy's? Don't play games, man! You know what I'm talking about!"

Marissa charged at Adam, "This is all your fault," getting closer to him with the purpose of attacking him.

Adam said, "That's not fair for you to attack a man knowing you're in a vulnerable position!"

She said, "What are you gonna do about it, Adam?" and punched him in the face, knocking him down.

While Adam tried to get up and compose himself, John just made her scoot over, grabbed Adam's right arm with both of his hands, pulling him up and getting him back on his feet, and then he ran out of the house, taking Adam with him. 

Both men went out to Adam's car and crying, Marissa ran after them, saying, "Where the fuck are you going?" 

But by the time she was running after them, both men were in the car, and John, having taken the driver's seat of Adam's car, sped away.


	2. Injustice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam goes to jail for something he didn't and would never do.

Adam realized on his way to wherever it was that John was taking him, destination unknown, that he'd left his phone behind. He became paranoid. By now, Marissa could be doing anything outrageous with his phone, just for revenge. "John, may I borrow your phone?" he said. "I just left mine behind, and I'm afraid that if you take me back to your house for me to get it back, she's gonna beat my ass like no one else ever has."

John handed his phone to Adam. "Is your service carrier open for customer service 24 hours?"

"I don't know because I'd never had to call customer support after seven o'clock at night, pacific standard time. Let's see and let's hope, so I can cancel my service and render my phone unusable as soon as possible." Adam dialed the toll-free customer-service number of his mobile-service carrier. Adam provided his basic personal information: last four of his social-security number and birth date, to access his account from another phone. He was given his account balance, date this billing cycle would end, and other important details customers usually got on the automated machine when they called for service.

Adam gasped when someone came on the line three minutes into the call.

"Good evening, T-Mobile Customer Support, my name is Jansen. May I have the account-holder name?"

John continued driving without saying a word.

Adam said, "Adam Mitchel Lambert."

"May I have your date of birth and the last four digits of your social?"

Adam dictated the information to the representative.

"Very well, Mr. Lambert, how may I help you today?"

"I need my service interrupted as soon as possible. I got into an argument with a friend, ran out of their house, and left my phone behind. Since they're angry, I have no idea what they're gonna do."

"You say you need your service interrupted?"

"Yes, interrupted, while I get a new phone."

"Does this friend know the information you just gave me?"

"He or she doesn't know the code I use to get into my account."

"Give that to me, please."

Adam dictated the six-digit-code to him.

"Thank you so much, Mr. Lambert. That is correct. So you want to report the phone as stolen basically? That will get your service interrupted in a flash."

"Yes, please."

"OK. Your service should be interrupted by the time this call ends. May I put you on hold for a second to get some additional information about your account?"

"No problem."

The man put Adam on hold. 

A phone call came in from Adam's phone. Adam was afraid to take it, so he let the phone ring. He handed the phone back to John while the first call was still on hold and John looked at the display screen.

John said, "She's calling my phone from yours."

"I'm scared of what she's gonna say, so please take the call for me and see what she wants. Please make it quick, too. I don't want the customer-service rep to get tired of waiting on the line and hang up on me."

John took the call. "What do you want, Marissa?"

"This is not Marissa," Caroline, one of John and Marissa's best friends said. "Marissa is too busy talking to the cops to do anything childish on this phone that's not hers."

"That phone is Adam's, Caroline."

"Adam who?"

"Lambert, and Marissa knows!"

"Shit, that's why she hasn't touched it!"

"Why is she calling the cops though? She's the one who punched Adam in the face!"

"Marissa needs help. She just bashed in her own face and now she's trying to report Adam Lambert for doing that to her, for punching her out Floyd Mayweather style."

"How do you know it was her and not Adam?"

"Because when she called me crying, I went and saw the neighbor across the street to see if he had indeed hit her, and the neighbor said Adam's car had been gone for at least 20 minutes! I don't know what's wrong with my friend, John. She's doing the unthinkable, accusing an innocent man. This has gotten way out of control! I'm trying to convince the cops to wait for Adam to come back, and now that I'm talking to you from his phone, that might be the perfect excuse to get him to come back so he can talk to the officers that are here."

 

* * * 

 

John took Adam back to his house. Adam had taken his jacket off just to clean his mouth with it because it wouldn't stop bleeding. At this point, Adam was certain he'd lost a couple of his teeth or molars. John and Adam got out of the car and met the police officers outside. 

Officer Viera walked closer to the men. "Mr. Adam Lambert?" he said and then said, "Whoa, wait a second."

Adam was still holding his $1,500 jacket over his mouth to try to stop the bleeding. He couldn't talk.

Viera said, "Oh, my God, what really happened between you and Ms. Ainsworth, Mayweather vs. De La Hoya all over again? Jesus Christ!"

John said, "If I may say something, he never touched her. I know it's almost impossible to prove, but he was the victim of assault here, not her. She punched him out, knocked him down, and when I helped him get up and took him away, the injuries turned out ten times more serious than we would've ever imagined. I mean..."

"I know she wasn't the only one who was struck, but now we have a serious problem, Mr. Wilder, because we don't know who hit whom first," Viera said.

"I am telling you he never touched her."

"That still has to be proven, so unless she drops the charges, Adam's gonna have to come with us, or until this investigation concludes."

Adam was taken in the police patrol to the police station charged with assault and battery. The injuries on Marissa's face were too grave for the cops to do anything else.


	3. Abusers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam goes to jail and meets some pretty weird guys. He opens his heart to both of his cell mates and discovers true evil while he's at it.

Adam got to the police station to be interrogated and told the police officers exactly what had happened.

Rollins said, "Well, she said you punched her out and punched her again, and she punched you out because you punched her first."

"So she changed her story."

"What?"

"I imagine that in the beginning, she never told you that she'd done anything to me. I imagine she told you that the argument got too heated, she said something I didn't like, and she earned a punch in the face from this man that stands at 6'1 and weighs about 180 pounds. Is that right?"

"You weren't there when she was talking to us, Adam. How do you know that's what she said?"

"I don't know what happened for sure. I'm just telling you what I imagine she could've said. I never said, 'She said,' or 'She didn't say this or that'. I said it very clearly. 'I imagine'. Those, to me, are the key words.

"I took her statement after you arrived and there was inconsistency in the report that she made to the other officers. I asked her to explain to me how your face is a horror show and how it's possible that you need medical attention when you get out of here becaue your injuries are so severe. That's what she said, that in her panic she forgot to mention that she hit you. Then she said that she punched you out after you punched her out. She said that you punched her out and she punched you out when she recovered a bit and got up."

"That's a lie. I don't know who hit her, but it certainly wasn't me."

"How am I supposed to believe you knowing what happened between you and Mr. Sauli Koskinen in Finland in Christmas of 2011, huh?"

"No punches were thrown then," Adam said, trying to keep his cool. "No charges were filed. We spent the night in jail and got out the morning after. That wouldn't have happened if either one of us had pressed charges against the other."

"You could be aggressive and abusive."

"You may believe whomever you want to believe. That's fine, but it's downright unfair for you to accuse me of being this monster who enjoys beating up people."

"I didn't say that. There you go dramatizing everything again, exaggerating, like you always do. This is not theater, Adam! This is real life!"

"That's great. This is personal, isn't it?"

"Personal? How could it be? Oh, my God..."

"You are expressing your intense dislike for my person and just making fun of me, calling me a drama queen, basically, aren't you?"

"Oh, my..." the detective let his head down, beads of sweat inundating his forehead, feeling a headache coming on.

"Don't even try to deny it! What kind of person 'dramatizes' and 'exaggerates'? A drama queen. Isn't that right? 'Exaggerating, like you always do'. How do you know I 'always exaggerate' when I talk? Are you with me twenty-four-seven? Jeez, I sure hope not because you are scaring me, man!"

"Adam..."

"You know what? Believe what you want. Do what you want. That's fine. I said the same thing you said about me but using different words. You can decorate it all you want, but it's still gonna be what it is. You don't like me for whatever reason, because it's the first time we met, so you have no legitimate reason to dislike me, because I've never done anything to you. You don't like me and you're letting it be known. The way this questioning is going. This is the most absurd interrogation I'd ever seen. Even Olivia Benson and Elliott Stabler from Law and Order: SVU aren't this good when they make fun of the crooks they question at the start of their investigations. You made it subtle. It was clever, but I still caught on. I am going to fight this, knowing my reputation as a person is going to be tarnished forever because the truth is I did nothing wrong."

 

* * *

 

Adam got booked and incarcerated. His cell mates then were shorter than he was. He just stayed quiet in his corner, waiting for what was to happen by the next morning or next few days. The two guys approached him. 

Roger said, "What did you do?"

"You're gonna hate me when I tell you what I've just been accused of, man. Hitting a girl, so if you disliked me before, you will loathe me now."

Roger asked, "You were accused of hitting a girl or a woman? Not that it matters much, but--yes, yes it does. A girl could be ages one to fifteen. A woman is eighteen years and older. Who did you hit? Why?"

"She's twenty-eight," Adam said, "so she's no literal girl from what you just said. When I said 'girl' I was referring to the person's gender."

"Did you hit her?" Howie asked.

"I know you're not going to believe me," Adam said, "but no, I never touched her. I never even talked to her when it happened. If you want to hear it, I am going to tell you right now." Adam explained to the guys everything that happened, what really happened.

Roger said, "So she says 'What are you gonna do about it?' and then she punches your face in, in a defiant attitude."

Adam said, shedding tears, "Yes."

Roger said, "She takes advantage of two important facts, that she's a woman and you're a man, and that she's pregnant, and I'm assuming that if you are indeed capable of hitting a woman, I give you the benefit of the doubt of not hitting her if she's pregnant."

"She was able to punch me out because she's five-foot-twelve, very pretty, but most importantly, tall enough to be able to reach and punch me out like she did," Adam explained.

"Yeah, that explains how she was able to reach," Roger said, hopping, trying and failing to meet Adam's height, standing at five-foot-seven. "Yep, I'm a dwarf, a total dwarf."

Howie said, "I am too, compared to you. Five foot ten."

Roger said, "In order for either of us to reach your face, one of us would have to do this," he said, punching Adam hard in the gut with the first of his left hand, making Adam get down, suppressing a scream," and then, we would have to do this," he said, punching Adam's face in and knocking him down, his body hitting the ground for the second time in one night.

Howie said, "That's not fair, Roger. You didn't have to hit him, man," helping Adam get up and getting him up against the wall just to use his own body to try to get Adam back on his feet. Adam was trying to regain his breath. "I was never his biggest fan as an artist, but I have to admit, that was utterly fucked up. He was nice to both of us from the minute he came in here. He never even gave us a dirty look. Why did you have to do that?" He walked Adam to his cot and helped him to lie down on it, taking Adam's shoes off. "Why are you all of a sudden trying to make a statement and play some kind of hero now, when you're here after sending your wife to the hospital? If your wife dies, you're facing charges of second-degree, unpremeditated murder. It's a crime of passion, but it's still murder, if she dies. Don't forget that, because I promise you, the next time I have to remind you, your ass is getting beaten good."

Still breathing hard and trying to recover, Adam asked Howie, "How do you know that, man?"

Howie answered, "Because I am a lawyer, and if you want to know, I am here for animal abuse and neglect. I let a dog die that was under my care and wasn't even mine. What I'm trying to say is that neither Roger nor I can try to play heroes beating you up for supposedly assaulting a woman because we are both criminals and abusers. We are both scum. People that abuse animals are scum, too. I am unrepentant, but I acknowledge I'm scum."


	4. Private-Life Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John starts opening up to Adam about his bedroom life, something neither man had ever done with the other. Things start getting awkward for Adam then. They start talking about what happened to both of them when they were away from one another.

Three weeks later, Tommy Joe Ratliff, Adam's best friend since 2009, bailed him out. John couldn't come up with the money, so what John did was to pick Adam up from the jail the day that Adam got released. John had a look on his face that would make a total stranger stop, come up to him and ask if they could do anything for him. Adam got into the passenger's seat of the car. John said to him point blank, "You shouldn't have decided to spend your vacation from your third world tour here, man." Adam asked, openmouthed, "Did I do something wrong?" The men fastened their seatbelts and John pulled out of the parking space. John said, "No, you've done nothing wrong, but ever since you arrived and then came over to my house that night, 3 days after you arrived, you've opened the most colossal can of worms anyone's ever." "Why do you say that?" Adam asked, worried, scratching his head. "I found out that Marissa's baby might not be mine, and it all started since I saw the picture on your phone of that other guy going into my house for a secret encounter with my fiancee." "Who told you?" "Seth confessed it to me, and he was completely unapologetic about it, too. He was like 'Yes, I've been sleeping with Mari, and I'm in love with her'. That's when I decided to end my so-called relationship. I'm not the type of guy to fight for a woman (with another guy) and I've never been, so they can be happy together, with their baby, and if it is my baby, then all Marissa's getting from me is child support. When I dump a woman I never go back with her. If I kept going back to Marissa it was because up until now she had never done something this terrible to me before." "I take it she never dropped her bogus assault charges against me because you refused to take her back this time." "And she told me, too, that the only way I could convince her to drop the charges against you was to get back with her like nothing ever happened." "Oh, this is perfect. Not only does she ruin my life, but she also uses me as a tool to get what she wants, just because she wants you, she's gotta have you, and it doesn't matter what it is she has to do to lure you back in and keep you tied down to her this time." "She says her mom taught her to stay with her partner no matter what and that her partner should do the same with her. You don't know all the bullshit that happened while you were in jail, man. If you had been there with us, you would've not taken a flight back to LA, no, you would've taken a flight to New Delhi or Taiwan and you would've never come back." "I guess I have every reason to do just that anyhow because everybody hates me now." "That's what you think. You should take a peek at your social-media accounts." "That's the last thing I want to do. I'm afraid to." "You shouldn't be. You're just in the same situation that Justin Bieber was back in the beginning of the year 2014; the media had a field day talking shit about him, but his Beliebers stuck by him, and you know what? To this day, in 2017, incredibly, they still do." "That doesn't mean that I haven't lost a shit load of fans." "I'd say you lost a few, but most of your fans refused to believe you battered a pregnant woman, but since you haven't been there to do any 'damage control', every day they keep tearing Marissa to shreds. Marissa deactivated all of her accounts. She's being bullied left and right. Those are her words, that last statement, not mine. What I said to her when she said that to me was, 'You deserve every last bit of it, sweetie pie. It's about time that someone saw you for the evil and manipulative vixen you really are'. That's the statement of mine that led to our definitive breakup." "Tell me more, please." "One week ago, I said to her that she was wrong, that this was not about you, but about her, what she does to all the men she claims to love. Because if you think I'm the first or the only one that she's put through this," he said and shook his head. "Sorry to say, Addy, but she's been doing this shit ever since she became sexually active at age fourteen. She's twenty-eight today. Do the math. There are many flings and one night stands before I came into her life. Just because I ain't never done that shit doesn't mean I'm any better than her. Her flings and one night stands don't count at all. Everybody has a history. What counts is what she's done to men she's had lasting relationships with. She's a straight-up misandrist." "Misandrist. Wait a minute. 'Misogynist' is someone who loathes women, the female gender, and believe it or not, there are misogynist females out there. We have a little bit of everything in this beautiful world of ours." "A 'misandrist' is someone who loathes the male gender. 'andre' is the suffix for the male gender. 'gyne' or 'gyny' is the suffix for the female gender. 'Misandrist', hater of males. 'Misogynist', hater of females. 'Androgynous', someone that exhibits male and female characteristics just the same." "I got you. I know that the prefix 'mis' in this situation means, 'hater of'." "Exactly." "I learned a new word today." "You didn't know anything about misandrists?" "No idea. I believed up until now that such a thing existed in the Lifetime Network/LMN movies, those psychotic villains that are the villains of those stories and do the shit they do just because they hate all the men or women in the world, just because mommy did this or daddy didn't do that." John laughed. "I love the way you talk, man." Adam said, "May I borrow your phone?" John handed it to him. "Any time you need it." Adam opened the internet browser on John's phone, went to twitter and signed in to his account. When he clicked on the notifications tab, he had millions of unread tweets. About thirty percent of them were filled with disappointment or hate toward him but a whopping seventy percent of them were filled with what they'd almost-always been filled with: love and support. He did a search on the name 'Marissa Ainsworth' on Twitter and all the tweets about her were filled with so much hate he'd never seen before against any non-famous person that had a social-networking account. He expected to see hatred from his Glamberts toward Marissa, but he never imagined he'd see hateful tweets from her own family members and friends. Someone tweeted to him a link of her ex-boyfriend's Facebook page, her ex boyfriend before John, and out of curiosity, Adam clicked on the link from the tweet of a Glambert with the words, 'This is why we can't stand and don't believe this bitch'. The page said nothing about Marissa, but Adam logged into John's account and sent a message to the man from there, saying, Hello, Linden. I am Marissa's ex-boyfriend, John Wilder, and I need to talk to you as soon as possible. Please write me back when you can. Sincerely, J. Wilder. Adam said to John, "Please pull over. I have something to show you." John got to the next sidewalk and pulled over. Adam handed him back his phone, guiding him through all the activity he'd just had on it. "You actually had the nerve to send him a private message posing as me, asking him to write you back?" John said, laughing hysterically. "You see, if anybody else had done this to me after borrowing my phone, I would've pushed them out of my car, but when any of my best friends does it, I just have to laugh. You guys are so--" "Inappropriate?" "Yes, that was the word I wanted to use, but it's only because you know you can get away with it." Adam frowned. "Aww, is that too strong a word for you just because you trespassed my Facebook and did something I would never have the balls to do? You should see how our best friends react when I use that little word on them! They do things that are the closest thing to what they do at a party in the Playboy mansion." "Oh..." "That got your attention, didn't it? What, no action?" "No. Some guys tried something with me during my second day in the slammer and this guy that was taller and much more muscly than me terrorized them into not touching me. He didn't even hit about anyone paying him to protect me. He just did. He just felt badly for me I guess; or he stands so strongly agaist rape that when he noted I didn't want what could've been compared to a gang bang he just threatened them into stopping--by whooping their asses. One man against all. Truth be told, I've participated in threesomes, but never in gang bangs. You only have so many condoms for everyone involved in a gang bang. Unless one's extremely careful, it's the City of STD's. They must've thought I was some kinda perv because they surrounded me and started--" "Don't contaminate my beautiful mind," John ordered Adam. "I've never even been in threesomes for that same reason. Some people 'melt' condoms, or if they intentionally fuck you over, they poke holes in them." * * *


	5. When One's Dark Side Surfaces at Random

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marissa has manipulated everyone around her so far, including destroying Adam Lambert's career, but she's about to find out what happens when one encounters an unfavorable situation and cannot control his or her emotions on the spot.

Adam and John went to a restaurant together. Adam had offered John some lunch in an act of gratitude for John picking him up at the slammer.

Marissa was there with her best friend, Claudia. If Marissa had known that she couldn't control her emotions when she saw someone she despised, she'd never brought Claudia Hausner along with her today. She kinda expected John to show up here, but not with Adam Lambert. "You a faggot now, John?"

Claudia asked her, "What the fuck, Marissa? Is this how you usually talk to him?"

Marissa shot her a dirty look.

Claudia said, "No wonder why he broke up with you for the 1000th time."

Marissa said, "Claudia!"

Claudia said, "It's just I'm 'old school'. Mom taught me that if I wanted to keep my man, to encourage him to stay with me by not talking to him like he's a piece of shit. Mom taught me to have balance in all things in life if I wanted to be in control without exactly being a control freak. Done it for twenty-four years. Not about to stop now. I'm gonna go home and give my man a hug."

Marissa said, "You don't know, Claudia. You don't understand."

Claudia shot back, "I think I'm getting a hint. Hello, Adam Lambert." She got up, walked up to Adam and shook his hand. "I oppose homosexual behavior, but I don't show it by using disgusting gay slurs."

Adam said, "It's good to know that you're not the extremist homophobe."

Claudia said, "The way I go about it proves that it's not a phobia. That's just not my thing, but if others wanna do it, more power to them. I'd just never sleep with another woman, and I don't tell others what to do. However if one of my three kids turned out to be gay I'd be supported but a wee bit disappointed."

Adam smiled. "I understand from your usage of the term old school."

"Exactly. Wanna have a burger with me while these two battle it out?"

Adam said, "I would do that if I hadn't wound up in jail because of Marissa."

Claudia said, "No worries. I know it all from Marissa's point of view."

Adam said, "Of course. I don't intend to change what you believe, just to show you that perhaps you shouldn't trust her this much. I don't know how long enough you two have been friends, but I saw a side of her that I hadn't seen in eight years, and I don't like it. Disgusting homophobic comment out of the blue just because she's pissed off?"

Claudia said, "Yeah, you should be the one pissed off, since she got you locked up rather than sealing the deal with you and staying away from you. I'm starting to disbelieve everything she ever told me. I've been her friend for one year, and I agree that I had never seen so much malice in her before. Look at her making an ass out of John!"

Marissa blabbered away while John just stood there, listening, his arms crossed across his chest.

Claudia said, "I want to get out of here. Is it okay if I leave with you and John?"

Adam walked up to John and said, "John, Marissa's friend suddenly wants to leave with us. Is it OK?"

John said, "More than OK. I wanna leave too, right now. So sick of all her bullshit!"

Marissa slapped Adam. "You are so rude!"

Adam was openmouthed, but he said, "Ohh," in a chant-like manner when he saw an aficionado recording everything from her phone, having started to record the minute Adam and John walked in here. "Ohhh," he laughed, "shit, son!"

The aficionado and her best friend started laughing their asses off.

The girl whispered, just so Marissa wouldn't overhear her and attack her, "I'm uploading this shit to YouTube and tweeting the link right now."

They continued laughing.

The girl did just what she said and the tweet caused total pandemonium among the fans and for the social media within minutes of the publishing of the video. The video went viral. 

Several people downloaded and reuploaded the video under different names.

The girl got up and said, "Adam, can we do a selfie together before you leave?"

Still stunned and shocked, Adam said, "Sure, sure--anything you want," and gently took the phone from the girl. The girl stood right next to him and Adam took a picture of both of them.

The girl's companion screamed, "Video!"

Adam and the girl recorded a video of them together introducing themselves to one another and just being silly.

 

* * * 

 

When everything was over, Adam, John and the two girls were at Adam's hotel, in the lobby, chatting away.

A man went up to them and asked to John, "Sir, are you John Wilder by any chance?"

John Wilder said, trembling, "Y-yes, I am," and looked at everyone.

The man said, "I am Dwight Halleck, the man you just contacted on Facebook."

John said, "What?" recognizing his face. "How did you know I'd be here?"

The man said, "You don't remember messaging me telling me you'd be here and we could just meet here if I was close by?"

John rolled his eyes. "Uhhh--"

Dwight said, "Oh, I get it, the 'designated texter' kinda thing, but done on Facebook private messaging. I don't blame you for forgetting about your private messages to me with all the drama you went through just a few minutes ago. I saw everything, dude. The video went f-ing viral."

John all but screamed, "What?"

Adam looked John and the guy right in the eyes simultaneously.

The girls, Regina and Sabrina just laughed their asses off all over again.

John nudged Adam on the arm with his elbow and sent him a text message on Adam's new phone that he'd just bought from Aio Wireless, What is all this about, man? Did you do this?

Adam looked down at his phone, read the message and replied, I plead the Fifth.

John replied, You gremlin!

Adam replied with an evil smiley.

John kicked Adam's shin softly under the table.

The girls just stood there, smiling evilly.

Dwight said, "Cullen-family-style conversation going on there?"

Everybody laughed.

John asked, "Guys, can Dwight and I have a human conversation of our own, please?"

Adam and the girls just got up all at the same time and the girls kept chatting and laughing with Adam as they all walked away from the scene.

 

* * *

 

Dwight and John were alone in the lobby, conversing like they were brothers, when in reality they'd just met.

Dwight said, "The truth has the strangest ways of coming out, doesn't it, John?"

John just nodded, knowing no other possible response, still awestruck. This day would haunt him for decades.

"I know how to get Adam's name cleared once and for all."

That piqued John's curiosity and interest in an instant. "What would you like me or Adam to do for you?"

"Neither of you has much left to do for me in exchange for this. I mean Adam's celebrity reputation has pretty much been restored. I imagine all the Glamberts he'd lost in the last month coming right back into the fan base and buying his albums again. And his movie. It's amazing how his impeccable reputation as a celebrity got restored in an instant. What I mean is I have the one thing Adam needs to either convince Marissa to drop the charges or that would get Adam vindicated in court in the near future."

"What would Adam have to do to get it?"

"Like 'The Terminator' in 'Terminator 2 Judgment Day' said, 'Listen to me very carefully'."

 

* * * 

 

Adam was in his room with the girls, but they were nowhere near the bed. Both were sitting on the floor out of sheer respect for him. There was no sticky situation, though. The girls looked about sixteen, but in reality they were twenty-two and twenty-four years old. "You know I'm incapable of hitting a pregnant girl like it's alleged that I did, right?"

"We've always known that. I mean anyone would lose control and slap a bitch," Regina said, "but..."

Sophia laughed. 

"...But I think your mama taught you better to respect a pregnant woman, I mean..." Regina said.

Sophia added, "We were on her side until we saw what she did at the restaurant. I mean you guys didn't even get to order food. You just got into that random argument with that girl with psychotic tendencies."

Adam said, "Psychotic is an understatement. She's not psychotic. I wish I could say she is in order to justify what she's done, but she's plain evil. I mean I know the difference between a psycho who just does bad things to anyone at random just in the spur of the moment and someone who does bad things just because that's the way they are. I have this friend named Kristina who's a little psycho and she does bad things when provoked and then she regrets them minutes after and that's why she has tremendous difficulty maintaining her relationships of different kinds, but Marissa Ainsworth is a whole new breed of malevolent. I mean Marissa--"

"If Kristina does bad things and regrets them immediately, trying to make up for them, then that's a sign that she's too passionate and overboard, but one can give her credit for having the heart to recognize when she has fucked up. I'm afraid Marissa lacks that ability," Sophia said.

"That's why my forgiveness for people like Kristina is unlimited," Adam said, "and why she's one of few people with whom I should've cut off all contact forever, but I didn't, because she's so complicated, but at the same time I understand she's not a bad person and the bad things she does are random and reckless. Her heart is good. She just doesn't think things through before she does them." He looked at his prepaid smartphone again. "Ooh, look, she just tweeted me. That's the beauty about her, how we've been friends for so long but she still treats me like I'm nothing but her favorite celeb when we're not in the same vicinity."

Regina asked, "Where does she live?"

Adam said, "Oregon."

Sophia said, "I wanna meet her in person. She sounds so badass. Is she older or younger than you?"

Adam said, "Younger. Twenty-nine."

Regina said, "Hmmm, what's her twitter handle? I'd like to make contact as just another Glambert."

Adam just showed her the tweet from his phone.

Regina said, "They blew up your mentions and interactions again."

Adam said, "That kinda stopped when this whole scandal shattered my world, but yeah, my mentions are blown up again, this time with more love and support than anything. Thousandfold, I mean...I'd say today is a good day for me in social media."

Regina said, "I can imagine your career slowly going downhill if we hadn't taken that golden opportunity to document Marissa's craziness with you and John."

Adam said, "You just felt like recording Adam Lambert when John and I walked into the restaurant, correct?"

Sophia said, "Certainly, and we got a lot more than we bargained for."

* * *


	6. So Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Looking for a friend, Adam makes revelations about his life behind the scenes his friends could've never imagined.

Kristina logged on to her Twitter account that night. By now, Sophia and Regina were gone from the hotel.

With John.

Kristina found two new followers on her account, the twitter handles of the girls. Having identified themselves as 'Glamberts', Kristina really thought nothing of following them. Since the girls had different user names on YouTube, Kris had no idea these were the girls who had recorded and uploaded the viral video of Adam, John and Marissa. Kristina just followed the girls back.

The girls happened to be logged on to their accounts at this very instant, and John was watching them do their magic from Regina's desktop computer from 2003 that still worked like it had only been a few months old. Regina was using a special device that helped desktop computers access wireless-based internet, and the blue-colored light of the device kept blinking in the dark, while the mischievous girls showed bright smiles before John Wilder's dubious eyes. There was no ill intent. All that they wanted was to see exactly why Kristina and Adam had connected and become such great friends.

Regina sent a tweet to Kristina saying, 'Hello! Thank you so much for following me back. What's your name? Is it really Kristina?'

Kristina replied, 'Yes, this is my real name, Kristina Nazario.'

Regina said, 'You're Hispanic! Cool!'

Kristina said, 'No, LOL, I am just married to a really-nice Latino guy. We've been married five years. I'm Black.'

Regina said, 'You are? Awesome. What's your maiden name?'

Kristina said, 'Kingston'.

Regina said, 'Wow! What's your husband's name? Just curious.'

Kristina said, 'Rafael.'

Regina said, 'Is he older or younger than you?'

Kristina said, 'He's thirty.'

Regina said, 'I'm LGBT. Hope that's okay with you if we're gonna be real friends'.

Kristina said, 'I'd be a mess of a person if I were bothered by it. My brother is gay, Josh Kingston.'

Regina said, 'Oh, I'm a lesbian.'

Kristina said, 'Gnarly.'

Regina said, 'You really don't mind?'

Kristina said, 'Not at all.'

Regina said, 'Cool. You saw the viral video about Adam Lambert, right?'

Kristina said, 'LMAO, who didn't? It was all over the place, even on freaking E! News!'

Regina said, 'I'm the girl who filmed the video'.

There was silence on the other end for ten minutes.

When Regina checked Kristina's profile, she was completely silent on her timeline, as if she had logged out of twitter, but then again, Kristina could've been talking to someone else on the direct messages. Regina tweeted Kristina again, 'You ok, Tina?'

Kristina said, 'Yes, I am quite OK, just shocked.'

Regina said, 'I can see that. I was worried a bit there because you said nothing for ten minutes straight'.

Kristina said, 'I just never thought I was talking to the girl that made the viral video. Wow. I'm really worried about Adam. What I really want is for that psycho Marissa to drop the charges. He did nothing to her,' she said but it took her two tweets instead of one.

Regina tweeted, 'We're working that out. Don't worry about Adam. He's got a team of aggressive attorneys that won't let him go down the rabbit hole because of this bitch. We always smelled the fish.'

Kristina said, 'It's astonishing how downright heartless someone can be? Why fuck over a sweet guy like Adam?'

 

* * *

 

John and the girls called Adam that night.

Adam answered the phone from his hotel room. He was considering buying a small house here, just a place to stay while he was in Boston without having to pay extraneous hotel fees if he considered this his third home. His first home was San Francisco, second home was LA, and third home was here. He was born in Indianapolis, but he hadn't settled there again since he moved to Rancho Penasquitos in Cali when he was just a few months old. "Good evening."

John said, "Mr. Lambert, how are you doing?"

Adam said, "Annoyed. For the first night in two years that I've been single, I feel incredibly alone."

John swallowed his saliva hard not expecting Adam Lambert to say something like this to him. "You okay there comrade?"

Adam said, "Yes, like I said, just alone. One, regardless of gender, becomes lonely when one doesn't have someone's arms around him or her for so long."

John asked, "You've had no action for two years? Seriously."

Adam said, "Yes. I didn't want another Barry Langston in my life. He was a total asshole, the kind of partner no one would want. Comparable to Marissa."

John's skin crawled. "Just hearing her name makes me sick, dude."

Adam said, "I feel the same about Barry. I just want someone to hold right now."

John said, "Why are you saying this precisely to me? Are you drunk?"

Adam said, "I don't talk to my friends like this when I'm truly drunk. If I were drunk I'd be laughing my ass off about nothing at all and just being obnoxious."

John said, "Sorry for making fun of you man."

Adam said, "No way for you to know what I feel is sadness. We're on the phone, and I'm a much-better actor than I thought. Next up for me could be a short role on 'Days of Our Lives' or 'The Young and the Restless' and finally, a big Hollywood film."

John said, "I wish you were saying that for the right reasons, complimenting yourself for the great actor you are."

Adam said, "Adam Lambert himself is not my best role to play right now. I'm scattered. I need a friend with me right now. Gender doesn't matter at all since all I really need is a hug. Danielle and Kristina are not here right now. Neither is Scarlett. Or Bonnie."

Regina said, "Aww, you can come back to the hotel and we can talk. Is that OK?"

Adam said, "Yeah. I feel so alone. I just feel so..."

 

* * * 

 

Adam barged into John and the girls' hotel room a few minutes later, that he was paying for, but that wasn't the reason. It was just that the more friends he could count on and talk to right now, the better.

Everyone wrapped him in a group hug.

Adam said with a heavy sigh, "Oh, man. I never thought that losing a friend would make me feel so desolate in a fucking hotel room. I believed losing a boyfriend would make me feel that way, but not a friend. I can't imagine what's gonna happen when I get the phone call saying that another family member of mine has passed on."

Sophia said, "Oh, Adam..."

Adam said, "I remember Spring 2013. When I lost Sauli, I thought our relationship ended because that chapter of our lives had been closed, but when the days passed and he was gone, I was working my ass off and I didn't really have proper time to grieve and just 'lick my wounds'. I started missing him, but I didn't let him know because I didn't want him thinking that I wanted him to get back with me. I didn't want him thinking I was trying to manipulate him, so I kept my peace about that, about how much I missed him. Sometimes I wondered if I'd done the right thing by us agreeing to just separate and start new lives apart from one another. As the months passed, by Fall of 2013, when I started really working on playing 'Starchild' on Glee, I realized that I didn't really just want him back and that it was just a normal process of a breakup. My breakups with Brad and Drake had been so strange that I didn't even tell the difference. Then in Summer of 2014, Barry came along and it felt so exciting because I'd been single for so long and I couldn't even brag about one-night stands with anyone or flings, contrary to what my detractors chose to imagine, believe and broadcast just because to them it felt much better to believe that Adam was this promiscous beast who'd fuck anyone that was walking around with a dick between his legs, disregarding the consequences, and--"

Regina said, "Carrying every STD known to man."

Sophia yelled, "Gina, oh, my gosh!"

Adam said, "No, no, that's exactly right. That's what everyone that disliked me was writing in their social networks and in their blogs, every time I'd leave the club with a friend or someone I'd just met that I could be working with or a childhood friend that I could be reuniting with that had just arrived to LA pursuing dreams of stardom like I'd done in the early 2000's. 'Fuck all of that, guys,' they'd say. 'Lambert is just fucking the living shit outta him and when the juice dries up, he'll just discard that twink like a mere piece of garbage'."

"It sounds dramatic," John said, "but when one really thinks about it, isn't that exactly what all of our enemies think of and say about us, the very worst of the worst? Look at everything Marissa has said about me and Adam online. She wrote in her Facebook, Twitter and blog that Adam and I were together all the time because we'd been secretly cheating on her since my relationship with her started and that I was bi and had chosen Ad as my gay sex partner and all this bullshit."

Adam said, "Oh, yeah, and don't forget the part that John had gotten the HIV virus from me and how frightened she was of having caught the HIV virus from John and getting tested evey so and so months--I mean this woman gets crazy when she's angry with someone that she believes has wronged her. That tongue, oh, my God, so toxic. I feel sorry for the next man to kiss her."

 

* * *


	7. When Feelings Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wilder starts feeling something for one of his best friends that he'd never felt for him...or any other man. What's gonna happen then? What happens when John Wilder can't control his lust or an intense desire for anything?

Kristina sent Adam a private message on Twitter, saying, "Adam, I talked to these girls named Regina and Sophia, your fans that met you in person recently, and I have to say..."

She ran out of space and typed another message saying, "...they're awesome! I hope you all become great friends!"

Adam read the private messages a few hours later saying, "Yes, they are, and just like you and I became great friends..."

He had to write another one, "they can be great friends for me, too? You and I met in GNT, remember?" and signed out of Twitter. 

Lately, he'd only been using Twitter to check his notifications and read and answer his private messages. That day, John Wilder called him. He answered the phone. "Hello."

John said, "I wish I could've stayed in the hotel with you but I was too scared."

Adam said, "Scared of me? What are you talking about? Now I'm scared for you, John Raphael Wilder! What the hell do you think you're doing? Where the fuck are you?"

"Adam..."

"Where did you go, back to her?"

"No, never. I am standing outside the hotel."

"Do you want me to go down and get you?"

The phrase 'go down' in combination with the word 'you' sent chills down John's spine, even though John knew that wasn't what Adam meant to say, and no one else that would hear this phrase would interpret it like he did. He cleared his throat. "No, no, I don't want anyone to know you're staying in this hotel. I'll go back up there."

"You better. I'm gonna be waiting. Please understand I don't want to be another Barry. I am just concerned for you. I just don't want her claws on you again."

"I understand. You're not wrong in reminding me. I appreciate it because I admit that if it weren't for you, I would've gone right back to her. Hell, if it weren't for you, I would still be with her, blind to the truth about her baby!"

"I just want you to be happy. You deserve someone much better."

"I'm glad you said someone," John said, without thinking and regretted it in a flash.

After about two minutes of silence, Adam said, "What do you mean?"

John said, in less than two-seconds time, "Nothing I'm going up there now," and cut the call.

 

A few minutes later, John knocked on the door to Adam's hotel room. His face was covered with sweat and his hair was soaking wet even though he hadn't just washed it. It seemed like he had, and it had been five hours since he took his last shower. Now, he needed another shower. 

When Adam opened the door and he was in a white bathrobe, John's mouth hung agape. He'd always found Adam very attractive and so photogenic that every time Adam arrived in town and they were together, John felt he had to take pictures with him every day to save them on a flash drive on his computer, but it was always out of envy, because John always thought Adam was much-more handsome than he was. And he'd seen him in a robe millions of times before. Yet he'd never felt...

Lust.

"Um, Adam..."

Adam said, "Are you feeling all right there?"

 

"Yeah, yeah, um," John said, walked in and shut the door behind him. "I just wanted to talk to you."

"You can talk to me about anything you want when you want." Adam walked up to the bed and sat on it. "What's up?"

John's clothes were getting soaked with sweat now. He walked over to him. "Oh, God."

Adam got up and hugged him. "You're scaring me. What's going on?"

"You're gonna think I'm a freak." He didn't want to say that. "Oh, my God, Ad, forget I said that! I know how hurtful that name is to you! I'm so, so sorry. I understand if you never want to talk to me again."

When John was walking out of the room, Adam said, "Wait, man."

John turned around even though he wanted to keep walking toward the door and leave. 

"First off, I appreciate you keeping in mind how hurtful it is to me to be called that name because it has too many different connotations, and all of them are horrible. However, you didn't call me that. Second of all, I wouldn't think you are one, for that same reason. I'd never call you a freak, but if I thought you were out of line, I'd call you something else and then never talk to you again, so don't worry."

"I'm not out of line for telling you..." he stopped and swallowed his saliva.

Rolling his eyes in confusion, Adam asked, "...for telling me what?"

"...That you're hot."

Adam laughed. "No because you've told me many times in the past that I'm so hot you abhor me because you're not as hot as me."

"I know, but I still think you're gonna see me as a freak because that's not what I mean, not this time."

Adam smiled. "Oh..."

"I have to know what you think."

"I think it's weird, but not freaky, and keep in mind that to me, the word 'freaky' always has a bad meaning. It's contradictory because that I know, you've never been attracted to another man before."

John cleared his throat. "No. Before today, I'd never been attracted to another man."

"Do you mean that man is me?"

"Yes." He wanted to lie, but he couldn't, not anymore. Damn. He figured it out way too quickly. It only took a few words. Adam was too smart for him. As calculating and smart as Marissa, though? That thought made him shiver out of fright.

"I don't think anything of it. So you're attracted to me, so you say, although I don't know why, since it's so sudden." Adam kept his distance this time. "I have to wonder if what's really happening is that you're just lonely and looking for a rebound."

"I am lonely and looking for a rebound relationship indeed."

"That's a problem because I insist that I am a man. I'd never seen you kissing or even known about you kissing another man, even in a dare or after losing a bet."

"Are you saying that if you respond to these feelings you'll regret it becaue you think I'm straight and it'd be wrong?"

Adam nodded. "I'd never found out about you kissing or being too 'touchy feely' with a man even when you've been drunk. I kissed Ke$ha while I was drunk, and though I don't regret it, it's very important to remember I was drunk."

"Right, but it wouldn't be wrong to experiment."

"No, it wouldn't, but what if it goes beyond remorse tomorrow morning. What if it destroys our friendship? I went through that once, name of the other man undisclosed. I'm not going through it again. And no, it wasn't because that man was straight."

John said, "Ouch."

Adam said, "Indeed."

"The last thing I want to do is to hurt you."

"I say the same to you. You know why. I am attracted to you, too. I always was, to be honest, but you were more like a celebrity crush to me; that man I liked but would've never touched."

"Crazy because you are the real celebrity in this situation."

"That's right."

"But if I'm suddenly attracted to another man, forget it's you, just for a minute, any other man--doesn't that make you doubt my heterosexuality that, like you keep repeating, you'd always known me for?"

"With all honesty, no, it doesn't make me doubt your heterosexuality. Are you drunk?"

"I wish I had the excuse of being drunk or high. That's what makes it even more confusing. I remember Miley Cyrus once said in an interview that 'anyone could be gay' and that all that had to be done was to 'give them a cocktail or put something in their drink'."

"That's bullshit. I don't think anything makes anyone gay or straight. People are born that way. Kissing Ke$ha never made me straight. I repeat, I don't regret it and I don't think it was disgusting. I think it was great. But it didn't make me straight. Why? Because no one or nothing can make anyone gay or straight. Being gay or straight just for one night after having their drinks spiked is a mistake, not a change of orientation, ever. It's something that should've never happened, and if someone spiked my drink to bend me to their will, I'd feel straight-out violated, John. What I mean by that rambling is that I don't want to wind up doing the same to you. I don't want you to make what in your mind would be such a big mistake that I'd lose you forever and that in the end we'd all lose you forever--to Marissa."

"Lambert, you're scaring me."

"That's the idea," Adam confessed.

John walked even closer and asked, "What if I told you it won't be a mistake?"

Adam replied, "I'd tell you that you don't know that. You can't predict the future. Most people wish they could. Oh, and in case you're wondering, I don't believe in anyone's ability to predict the future, either. Never have and now that I am thirty-five, I probably never will."

"What if I told you I want to take the risk?"

"I'd say you'd have to show me. Words are not enough."

"Tell me how you want me to show you. Since you have all of the experience in the world when it comes to gay sex, you'll have to show me. I've never kissed a man. It's true what you've heard. I have never. I want to now."

"I insist in asking why. What makes me so special that I am that one man you wanna kiss right now? Why not another man?"

"Because you're the man, besides my father and my brothers, that I trust the most in this world. You know who my friends were, and you know they all betrayed me."

"You've stopped talking to them?"

"I pulled a classic Adam Lambert on them and stopped talking to them forever, yes. If they lied to me about the paternity of the child I always thought was mine, and I forgive them, they'll do it again thinking they'll get away with it. In order for anyone else to take me for a fool and get away with it, they'd have to be one of two things: my family or a stranger, a friend I just made. I always forgive my family, no matter what, because they're my blood. I'd forgive my brother and love him seconds before dying after being stabbed or shot by him. I won't let a friend lie to me again, even by omission. That's the kind of lie that could've destroyed my life. What if I had found out after marrying Marissa?"

"You have a great point, and that's why I stop talking to people and pretend I never met them when they do that to me, because how many times do they think they'll get away with the same shit?"

"That's the way to live. I do forgive. I just want them far away from me."

"Same here. I do forgive. I just don't let traitors and liars back into my life. If you want them far away from you, far away they will be. Just tell me where you want to go and I'll book you a ticket there."

"Wherever it is you're going next, even if it's back to China, I want you to take me there and leave me there."

Adam laughed. "You want me to take you away with me?"

"Yes."

"I can do that. That's not a problem."

"Can you accept my proposal if I promise to you that if I regret it we won't stop being friends?"

Adam said nothing this time.

"No comebacks? We're getting somewhere. I see you're relenting."

"I just confessed I'm attracted to you, too, and I always was. You're hot."

"You know how one would lose me as a friend forever? By betraying me. Same as you, correct?"

"Correct."

"And this isn't an act of betrayal because you're not the one starting something or pulling me against your body or anything like that."

"I never would. I'm not aggressive during sex."

Now it was John's underwear that was soaked. "Good to know."

"I may take the lead and take control most times, but that doesn't mean I'm aggressive. There's a huge difference."

"OK. OK. You won't lose me. We'll always be friends. Do you trust me?"

"Yes."

"Have I ever lied to you?"

Adam thought it over for several minutes, making John even more nervous without intention. Then he said, "Not that I remember, and I have memory too good for you."

"So do you want to?"

"Yes. I have to be sure that you do, too. I have to have absolutely no doubt in my mind."

"I want this too much. What do I have to do, beg? Take my clothes off and you'll see."

"Oh, that's how you want it."

John threw himself onto the bed, lying on his back. "Have your way with me. Do what you want."

Adam did exactly what he was asked, what he wanted to do with John, what he'd always wanted to do, although he never wanted John to give in to him like this. Adam meant every word when he said that John could be his fantasy forever. After all, fantasies were much more exciting because in a fantasy, there were no limits, no holds barred. Still, John kept asking for it and telling the worlds any lover would want to hear. This made tonight a night that John would never forget. Just when all his life he'd believed that Marissa had realized all of his fantasies, here came this man that did exactly the same, except this was something that exceeded any dream. By the time it was over, both men were spent, and John's heart was palpitating.

* * *

The morning after, John was still trying to recover, looking opposite of his new lover. His eyes were irritated from all the tears he'd cried during those last crazy almost fifteen hours that had just passed. With the few female partners this man had had in his life, he'd never made love to them this long. Just for reassurance, Adam had asked him to turn around and take control of him just like Adam had just had at the moment, and John turned out to be a much-more aggressive and passionate 'top' than he'd ever imagined, so passionate that John surprised even himself. Yesterday and last night were crazy. It was all crazy. He was still wrapping his head around it, but just like he'd dared to predict seconds before this happened, there were absolutely no regrets.

Adam woke up. "How do you feel?"

When John turned around, Adam looked to him more than a child that was failing his course and was awaiting the results of his final exam to know if he'd had even a small chance of passing the course. John said, "I feel good," taking Adam's hand in his. "It was good. It was comparable to all of those first times that happen at random and without prior planning. It was like committing a crime of passion, but in a good way. I was here, the other person was in front of me, and I went all out and did what I never even imagined I would. Is that a good answer?"

"That's a great answer, coming from a straight man."

"Adam, how many times do I have to tell you I'm not straight according to your idea of straight?"

"What are you then?"

"I wouldn't say I'm bi. A bisexual person is someone who's attracted to both genders just the same."

Adam said, "...and you didn't just discover you're gay?"

"In order for me to believe that and say it, my whole life would have to pass without another woman getting in my bed."

"So you're saying you're questioning now."

"You could say that. I don't know."

Adam smiled, but it was a smile of confusion. "That's what questioning means. Didn't you know?"

John burst out laughing. "Call me ignorant, but no, I didn't."

Adam said, "Bitch, please, I wouldn't call you ignorant even if I knew for a fact that you were."

They couldn't stop laughing.

John repeated, "Bitch please," and then laughed again and said, "Oh, my God, I'd never laughed like this with another man before, at least not right after this situation with him."

Adam fell off the bed and when he got back up, his mouth was hanging agape and he got back on the bed a little too quick, like he was in a panic. "What did you just say?"

John smiled again. "You heard me. I understand your reaction, though. Perhaps you think it's weird for someone to be Q at my age."

"It's not about how old you are. I've known people that have changed from straight or gay to Q in an instant at age fifty-or-sixty-something. People that were married to someone of their opposite gender, and then after spending one night of someone of the same gender, have never gone back to being straight because they discovered in reality they were gay? Yeah, that. It's about where the hell did this come from?"

"I understand."

"If you had flirted with me before or with any other dude, this wouldn't be so shocking to me."

"I'm shocked too, Lambert."

"I mean what the fuck...?"

John laughed again. "You're making me laugh too much, man."

"But why?"

"I don't know."

"Do you know what it means when someone makes the other person laugh this easily? I mean you're laughing at the stupidest random shit I'm saying."

"I know what it means. That's why it makes me laugh, because I am flabbergasted."

"Me, too. I don't even know, man."

"All I know is that I want it to happen again."

* * *


	8. Desperate Decision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just as a good thing starts, it might have to end because the predator won't let go of her prey.

A few hours later, Adam and John were having lunch together at the lobby.

Adam said, "You're Q. To me, a Q person means someone that has to continue to explore to know for sure what his or her orientation is. That means we're still friends and you're free to continue to explore. You're not tied to me. No man's ever been unless he was my official boyfriend. I don't want to be boyfriends, not till I'm sure of two things: what your true orientation is and if you'll ever truly fall in love with me."

"That's good. You mean you don't expect fidelity from your partner unless he's your boyfriend."

"That's exactly what I mean."

"I want to be fair. You're free to keep exploring, too, although you're not Q."

"Yes, that's fair. But I won't explore much, meaning I'm not going to start sleeping around. I've never slept around. I'm not gonna start now. I did have my one-night-stands and my flings in periods of time that I didn't have a boyfriend, but I'd never been with multiple partners at the same time. That's not me."

"I know. 'Fling' and 'one night stand' don't mean the same thing."

"'Fling' means 'no strings attached'. I've had a few of those instances in my lifetime, a few."

"I know that. I also know you hadn't been with anyone in quite some time. If you had been with someone recently, you wouldn't have ravaged me the way you did. You said and meant you weren't aggressive, but your loneliness didn't let you show it, not quite," John said and smiled.

"You enjoyed it much more than I thought."

"I appreciate aggressive sex to a certain extent."

"I know what you mean. Does this mean that you would practice 'BDSM' with her a lot?"

"More than I would've wanted to if I had had any control."

"I've just decided. No matter what type of relationship this is gonna be, there will never be BDSM between us. I don't want you feeling more vulnerable than you already do. I don't want to be her."

"And I don't want to be Barry."

"Good point. So I have to know," Adam said and took another sip of his soda. "Did you mean it when you said you wanted me to take you away with me the next time I travelled, or were you just being corny?"

"I meant it."

"That's good because I am due to travel again next week."

"On a vacation?"

"I wish," Adam said, smiling like an idiot. "I've been writing too much new material to not make a new album for my Glamberts."

"It's been two years, man. No, three years since your last #1 Billboard Top 100 album. Time to make another one. What's the theme gonna be?"

"I want the lyrics to narrate real-life experiences. People loved that in "Trespassing". I think it's a good idea to bring back the concept, you know. A lot has happened in the almost five years since the release of "Trespassing". Think of this as an update."

"That sounds great. Where are you going?"

"I wanna go to New York."

"I'd love to go there, but like I said, I wanna be dropped off. I want you to leave me there when you go back home. I wanna start a brand-new life."

"That's the reason for me taking you with me or offering to just book a ticket for you anywhere in the world. I want you to start anew: new friends, new beginnings, new relationships on the horizon maybe a new chance to start a family, with someone that loves you."

"This takes me back to the random comment I made after you said 'someone' to me during our phone conversation yesterday."

"You know that's not what I meant, right? I never intended for this to happen. If it hadn't happened in so long, why now? But I don't regret anything. I wouldn't say I'm in love with you because I'd only known you as a friend, but I must confess I do have a crush on you."

"You've been having a crush on me. I think that's one of the reasons why it happened."

"...Not intense enough, just saying. I think that's why I still can't wrap my head around it."

"It feels good, though. I don't regret anything either. I repeat I want it to happen again."

"She's trying to track you down. That's what manipulative and controlling partners do. They don't stop unless one escapes from them to a place that's too far away for their damned tentacles to reach."

"She's made contact? Show me what you got."

Adam showed John several insulting text messages Marissa had left on his new phone.

The first message said, "I know you two are together, not because it's what you do, but because it's what John Wilder does. Otherwise you would've fucked all of the exes of all of your best friends."

The second message said, "It's his M. O., Adam, not yours, but that doesn't mean I'll ever forgive you for tearing us apart. We would still be happy together if you had kept your disgusting and rotten mouth shut and kept my secret, like you never found out, like my real friends did."

The third message said, "That's why you'll never be happy, because you took the wrong man from the wrong woman."

The fourth message said, "I know you'd never had sex with a straight man, so that's how I know he won't suddenly turn gay for you, but enjoy it while it lasts because he's going to play you like a cello, and when he's done using you, he's gonna come right back to me, and..."

Since she'd just run out of space, out of characters to write, she'd created a fifth message saying, "...come right back home to me, and you're gonna be so in love with him and so brokenhearted you're gonna wind up like you deserve to--dead."

John said, "Wow. I think there's something you should've done with those texts. I don't think just saving them to show them to me would do much."

Adam said, "I've done nothing so far. What do you suggest? I mean this is your ex we're talking about."

John snatched the phone from Adam and said, with a hateful tone in his voice, "You can say that a million more times and not be wrong, 'my ex'," and forwarded all the hateful texts she'd sent to Adam to Marissa's new boytoy. He handed the phone back to Adam.

Terrified, Adam asked, "Who did you just forward these two?" His hands were shaking so bad the phone fell on the floor. He bent over, still sitting down, and picked it up.

"Those are hateful and harassing enough to send to the police, but I started by sending them to her new fling."

Adam all but yelled, "Fuck no," making everyone around him turn to look for a few seconds. He saw the number the texts had just been forwarded to. "From my phone? I refuse to accept you just did that."

"I'm afraid you don't know me as well as you thought you did. Guess you didn't spend enough time with me to see my evil side. Meet my evil side. If she wants to interfere in my life and make things difficult for me, I'll do it right back to her, and if we wind up fighting to the death, so be it."

"I'm afraid she didn't know you well enough, either."

"This is the me that she created, Adam Mitchel."

"I see that. Oh, my God, what is she gonna do to you now? That's it, I am booking tickets for you to somewhere random around the world," he said and got up. "You're not gonna know where it is until you see the printout of the confirmation. I'll be right back." Adam ran out of the area to go back to his hotel room.

 

* * *

 

John waited for Adam at the lobby. 

 

* * *

Marissa knew where to contact him and knew he was with Adam Lambert, but her mole, her snitch, didn't get to tell her exactly where they were together because one of the family members of the snitch had convinced him or her not to get involved further in this mess, that the mere fact he was messing with a celebrity, let alone Adam Lambert, meant future complications too big for this person to tackle. Adam had never hired hitmen. He had never had anyone beaten up after crossing him. He'd never taken action this drastic, but if this person kept playing with this fire, he or she would get burned. No one that dared to cross a celebrity had gotten away with it. It was all a matter of money and power, and there was no celebrity that didn't have enough money to fire back at an enemy that didn't have enough money when this enemy attacked that star. Furthermore, Adam had established friendships with celebs who were even more powerful and richer than he was, that cared enough about him to try to help him out if a non-celebrity person represented a threat. Therefore in the end, the snitch had no choice but to disappear without leaving a trail.

 

* * *

 

Adam came back to the lobby a few minutes later with a printout in his hand just like he'd promised. He walked over to John and handed it to him.

John unfolded the piece of paper and when he knew the place he was going and looked back up at Adam astonished. Adam was trying to send him to another country with the logic that any of Marissa's minions could follow him if he just went out to another state. "You're sending me all the way over there? You can't be serious."

"Don't say anything. I don't want anyone to even know you left," Adam whispered. "You don't know if any of these random passersby, if any one of them is really one of her spies going back to her with information about you. If she knows we were here, it's only a matter of hours before she finds out exactly where we are."

"That's true. It's good you booked a flight for tomorrow night. I better get going. I don't even have time to pack clothes, though!" he whispered back, starting to panic.

Adam handed him his credit card. "Spend as much money as you need on clothing, without worrying about how much. Make sure to buy enough clothing for the whole month, one top and one pair of pants or shorts for every day of the month."

"I'm gonna have to go to a department store, Adam. Do you know how much it'd cost to go to one of those exclusive stores you are used to going to and buying one piece of clothing, one top and one pair of pants for every single day of the month? That's thousands of dollars, and I am not spending those on your credit card."

"This isn't a shopping trip that's made for pleasure, just for going shopping, for fun. This is an emergency. Just go to any store you want to as far away from town as possible, and then buy enough luggage for the clothing and for all of your personal-care items, and board this flight. You literally have no time whatsoever to think of the specific store or anything like that. Just do what has to be done."

 

* * *

 

John drove seventy miles away from his original location spending money for gas along the way, although not much, considering that his car was fuel efficient, one of those forty-something-mile-per-gallon type of cars. Then, he went to one of the department stores in which he could get good clothes but not for too-high a price, meaning that at this store, there were no two-thousand-dollar-shirts. Or pants. Or anything that cost $2000 for one piece.

John bought as many clothes as Adam instructed him to buy with Adam's own credit card and spent a total of $2000 on his entire new wardrobe: enough underwear, different types of shirts and pants, socks and pairs of shoes for thirty days' time. Then he went to another store where he bought his luggage and his personal-care items. He hoped he could get a new job as soon as possible in the country he was going to have to settle in for an unknown lapse of time: Buenos Aires, Argentina. None of Marissa's minions or Marissa herself had enough money to spend to follow him all the way there. Adam had promised him to wire him money any time he'd need it, and John prayed that Adam wouldn't have to support him economically for long. Of all the things he'd wanted from a lover, any lover, that was the last thing he wanted, for his lover to have to support him in that way. He didn't want a sugar daddy or a sugar mama. He wanted a companion. Someone to hold to warm up his lonely nights. That was it. Marissa had placed him in a crazy situation, but if this was what it took to escape her, he was willing to face any difficulty, no matter how great.

 

* * * 

 

As soon as Adam was certain that John had boarded his flight at the right time, he finally texted Marissa back after having ignored her hostile texts for days, saying, "You were right about his M. O. He was lonely, he used me, and then he left me. I don't know..." 

He ran out of space and composed the next text. "...if this applies to you, but I know I'm never gonna see him again. We had the most unbelievable and heated argument on 'the morning after', and..."

He composed the third text, "...he upped and left. I don't know where. I hope you get him back like you want to because I know I don't want him. Just one more twink for me. Congratulations for wanting to hang on to a great guy."

Adam had to lie about how he and John felt about one another. He had to lie about what happened between him and John because his only objective was to save John from a woman he saw as one of the fiercest predator of all. That was the right word. Predator of men. Misandrist. He didn't want John right back in her claws, so he had to do two things: send John away and lie about what they had, about what had happened. He never expected John to be his anyway, not in the way that truly mattered. He didn't want his best friend to become his boyfriend and his man overnight. He knew this passion, as intense as it was, was ephemeral, and despite the incredible hours they had together, Adam still saw this person as his best friend and nothing more. For that reason, Adam only had one objective in mind for John: for him to survive and be happy with the person John deserved to be with; someone loving, caring, loyal and dedicated. It didn't matter if it was a man or a woman. John was "Q". It didn't even matter if this person was Adam Lambert himself. Adam loved him enough to watch him be happy, no matter with whom, and if he couldn't make John happy, he had no problem watching someone else doing it.

 

* * *

 

Adam wrote John a single-spaced letter.

 

"Dear John,

 

I don't know if you and I are gonna see one another again. As long as Marissa is still alive and still obsessed with you, with all honesty, I'd prefer not to see you again if that's what it takes to keep you away from her and out of her reach. This is how much I care about you. I'd rather not have you again if we're together and still close to that viper. I just want one thing for you. Happiness, which is what you deserve.

I write you this letter to warn you that when you do hear about me again, you're gonna find out about a lie I told. I won't blame you if you're heartbroken, so I'm gonna tell you before you hear it from anyone else, told from that person's point of view. This is something I did, so it only makes sense that you know about it from my point of view and mine alone. I told her that she was right, that your M. O. when you broke up with someone was to find the next person in your proximity, use them until you're tired of them, and then discard them. Moreover I told her you were 'one more twink' to me. Enclosed are images of the text messages I sent to her as replies to the messages she sent to me. I hope you understand I told this lie, not because you literally were 'one more twink', but to discourage her from thinking I'm a threat to her obsession, so that she leaves both of us the fuck alone and moves on, hopefully to someone who will put her through all of the shit that she put you through, you and all the men before you. 

Well, this is all I have to say for now. More letters are coming if you want to read them, but my letters to you will always be sent with someone else as the true sender. I have to eliminate any possibility of her knowing where the hell you are. As long as you have communication with her, you will never have piece of mind.

Love always, still your best friend,  
Adam M. Lambert."

 

* * *

 

One month later, John received the letter, but the sender in the envelope was Kristina Nazario, Adam's friend from Oregon. Wondering what Mrs. Nazario wanted to say to him, he opened the letter. He'd heard about her, but he hadn't gotten to talk to her through any means. When he started reading the letter, he gasped. It's from Adam he thought, and when he read it from start to finish, his eyes were welled with tears. He couldn't believe that the best connection he'd ever had with someone on an intimate level had wound up being something that could be classified as a one-night-stand after all. It was only one instance. Now less than ever was he able to get over this feeling. He couldn't believe this incredible person he now knew he was forced to leave behind, someone who loved him so much that he was willing to give him up forever, if like he wrote, that was what it took to protect him from an abusive ex-partner. John realized at that moment that if the tables were turned and Adam had never escaped Barry's claws, and Barry had never been locked up for what he did to Adam, John would've done exactly the same thing to save the life of his best friend. Adam loved him so much that he was treating this relationship, this friendship, as one that was just illegal. He was literally keeping in touch through other people, sending John letters under other people's names, just to keep Marissa from following John's trail, tracking him down, and restarting communication with him to torment him. 

While Adam was right on in believing that for Marissa to travel to Argentina to actually follow John there was a waste of time and money, Marissa would keep communication going as long as she knew the whereabouts of her ex with one objective--to use her words to make him miserable and turn against him any new friends that he would make along the way. Instead of writing Adam back snail mail, and finding a new friend he'd just made to send Adam a snail mail in her name, John was more clever: he created a twitter account under a false identity to keep communicating back and forth with Adam, and he was even more clever in pretending who he was in Adam's life: just another Glambert on the outside looking in, but sending him the most romantic love letters ever, love letters that made him seem like a crazy, delusional Glambert, and to make it even more confusing to any of Marissa's watchdogs, he'd lie even about his gender. He'd pretend to be a woman.

John got online from a computer at a cyber-cafe kind of place and created his fake twitter account. He didn't want it to be obvious that he was what he was pretending to be, what Glamberts called a 'cray'. He preferred it for them to figure it out eventually and start making fun of the tweets on this account. He didn't care. After all, the person they'd be making fun of was fake. They wouldn't be making fun of John Wilder. 

In days' time, this new account gained 100 followers and after tweeting only his followers, he started sending tweets to the fifteen celebrities that twitter usually got new users started with. Then he added a new celebrity of his own to follow that twitter hadn't prompted him to follow.

When the fake account was three weeks old, John started sending tweets from it to the object of his affection.

The very-first tweet said, "Hello, sweetie. I really am in love with you and it's kinda hard to get over it."

The second tweet said, "You left me hanging and that wasn't fair. I would've liked this to be something more. If only you had..."

He had composed another tweet, "...told me the truth instead of promising unreal love to me, it wouldn't hurt so much."

Fans of this celebrity started thinking, and tweeting between each other, "What is this girl doing tweeting these things to this gay man? Is she cray-cray?"

Other fans made fun of it saying things like, "OMG, this cray-cray, female fan sending romantic tweets to Adam."

When one fan was daring enough to start sending tweets directly to John's fake twitter account, several other fans tried to discourage her by telling her that fighting with a cray or showing her their disagreement with her tweets would do no real good, to stay away from 'the cray'. They said to this fan that although what this other Glambert was doing was beyond insane and senseless, it wasn't illegal or wrong, and that Adam, in the fans' minds, would dismiss these tweets as a waste of time and just block the fan, and the cray would be heartbroken and discouraged enough to just deactivate the account and not sign up for a new twitter account ever again. Adam had 'kicked fans out of Twitter' in that way, just by blocking them after bitter arguments with them, or after incidents of relentless harassment, even if it was well meant, meaning, if the tweets that became overwhelming because there were too many of them, weren't disrespectful, but rather nice tweets.

But ignoring those tweets was the last thing Adam did. He read them all, over 150 of them in the end, analyzed them, and picking up different words and phrases, he became suspicious as to who the author of these tweets really was. While he wasn't right on target suspecting John Wilder of being the author of these tweets, he suspected this person as being an ex-boyfriend pretending to be a 'female cray-cray Glambert' just to keep communication open. Perhaps Adam had a score to settle, unfinished business with this ex-lover who was lying about everything about himself just to restart communication with him.

Praying this wasn't Barry the monster, Adam started sending private messages to this Twitter account.

"Hey, man, ex-BF, whoever you are, if you knew me as well as you think you do, you'd know I never..."

"...make false promises of love to a man of getting him in bed with me. WTF do you think you're doing?"

"...you may be minimizing damage to my reputation lying about everything about yourself, but this still hurts my feelings. You are painting me as..."

"...the evilest manipulator. Lying to someone about your feelings for them to get them in one's bed is eviler than you can ever start to imagine."

"So unless you want me to report you to twitter for harassment, please stop sending me tweets."

"You don't have to close your account like others have done. Just stop tweeting to me. Stop. This is more hurtful to me than you know."

"Please write me back telling me you'll stop and don't make these PM's a waste of time."

 

* * *

 

John read all of the private messages. He'd known Adam long enough to know how sensitive he was and know that the wrong word or the wrong phrase at the wrong time and in the wrong circumstance could really hurt his feelings even if that wasn't the true intention of the person saying these words. Sometimes a mean or snide remark could hurt more than the person sending it out could intend it to.

Therefore, he replied to the PM's. 

"Hey, man, this is John Wilder, your best friend. This was an easier way to keep communication going."

"You're right, I am lying about who I am, about everything about me. I deliberately wanted to seem as 'cray cray' as possible..."

"...just to keep the wrong people from figuring this all out and getting back to me. You know what I mean."

"Letters are beautiful, and that first letter you sent me in Kristina's name had drops of tears on it still..."

"...and it really got to me. It broke my heart. But I'm over that feeling now because when all that a man is to you is a twink..."

"...You let him know from the very beginning."

He'd scanned Adam's letter to send it as an attachment in one of the PM's when he'd finish writing them up.

"I agree with you when you say how evil it is to bed someone after making false promises of love to that person."

"Please don't report my account for harassment. That's not what I intended. I will stop sending tweets and start sending PM's."

"I promise. Not all of your Glamberts hate this 'cray account'. Some of them find these tweets kinda cute."

"So there's no reason to close this account unless you can't stand what it says. Reply as soon as you can." He sent his attachment.

* * *


	9. Long-Distance Relationship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam and John find a way to keep this good thing going although now there thousands of miles apart. Could this sudden, but intense love survive?

Adam got notified of new private messages. He would get private messages from celebrity buddies every so often, but there was one thread of PM's that stood out from all others even though it wasn't from a celebrity buddy. It stood out because it had an attachment, and that attachment piqued Adam's curiosity a little more than usual. He opened the thread of PM's and sat in his hotel-room bed motionless for several minutes. He was in New York and he'd started recording his new album by now. He'd started recording one of his brand-new songs, and having a blast doing it. When he got himself together after having read his first snail-mail letter to John Wilder as an attachment to the thread of PM's, he started replying to them.

"Talk about doing it the easier way. Must be complicated pretending to be something you're not, and..."

"...doing a job at it good enough to seem like a totally-delusional and almost-dangerous person."

"I mean these tweets of yours to me in the beginning read more like something a fan would say, a fan capable of..."

"...actually following their favorite celeb around everywhere, like physically, like a fan tracking me down, finding me in NY..."

"...following me here, and showing up at the lobby of this hotel. I mean WTF? You seem a much better actor than me!"

"Changing your gender, pretending to be a woman, that's fucking genius. It made you seem out ya fucking mind! Congrats!"

"If you hadn't lied about your gender in this profile, my reputation would've been ruined. I would've been seen as..."

"...this asshole who loves using men for his enjoyment and discarding them like toilet paper. Monstrous."

"So it was clever and kind of you to pretend to be female."

"Do what you promised. Keep in touch via PM's, never via tweets, OK, and if you can count the tweets you sent to me..."

"...I suggest you delete all of them and change your twitter handle and change your profile."

"...Or even better, deactivate this account and create a new one, but avoid sending me tweets at all costs."

"...Send a tweet to Kristina Nazario just to let her know your new handle and then delete it." 

"...That way she will notify me of your new account, that it's you trying to contact me, and we can start keeping in touch..."

"...via PM's again and PM's only, got it. And if you think letters are romantic, write them longhand and attach them."

"You are the best (name withheld). Thank you for being this cute just for love for me. I love you always. Adam."

 

* * *

 

John started crying uncontrollably when he read those new private messages from Adam, but these were tears of joy, not sadness. Before deactivating this account that he didn't mean for it to become controversial, he made screenshots of those PM's that Adam sent him that he found absolutely beautiful. Then, he did what Adam suggested to the letter: deactivating the account, and then he made a new email address just to be able to sign up for twitter with it. He created the new twitter account in a matter of minutes and started following fifteen different people, like Twitter still kinda prompted brand-new users to do. He'd made it so that Adam was the first person he followed. Then he chose his display name and wrote up his bio, identifying himself as a male fan of Adam Lambert, but he'd decided to avoid sending tweets to Adam for time indefinite. When he was done, he sent a tweet to Kristina solely with the purpose of identifying himself to her and his best friend, Adam. 

He was one lucky bastard that Kristina read the tweet minutes after he sent it to her. She got back to Adam with that twitter handle via private message and then gave a simple reply of 'how are you doing', and as soon as John received that tweet reply, he deleted the tweet he sent to her and she deleted the tweet she sent to him, like they never tweeted one another.

The private messages started all over again, but now that replies would be almost instant from both ends, they started getting less and less elaborate, and what these lovebirds really wanted to say, they'd send to one another as photo attachments. Those attachments were these letters written longhand, with different colors of ink excluding pink. John assumed that if Adam hated the color pink as much as he said he did, it'd be awkward to him to read a letter written in pink. With each letter that was sent and received on both ends, they would get more and more romantic and heartfelt, and over time, even though these men that saw one another still as nothing but best friends, didn't realize what they were doing by writing down these words that came from their hearts, the long-distance connection became stronger, and their fantasies became more and more heated, making those nights alone in bed much more intense, as if they weren't thousands of miles away from one another. It became so intense that it looked more like the plot of those weird SyFy movies: intense enough for these new lovers to feel it as if they were together, skin on skin.

 

* * *

 

It hadn't been two months yet since, back in Boston, Massachussetts, Marissa and Alistair's relationship had started, when already Alistair was starting to feel not quite right at home even though now he and Marissa were living together. He'd received too many suspicious phone calls from that man that everyone alleged it was the man that Marissa was truly in love with: Seth. Seth did absolutely nothing to prove that everyone was wrong about his and Marissa's relationship. In fact, Seth's text messages were getting more and more romantic and passionate, and Alistair was starting to believe what everyone was saying about Marissa, John and Seth, that Seth was the true biological father of Marissa's baby, and not John, like she'd fought so hard to make everyone believe.

Alistair had had enough. He went into his and Marissa's room with her phone in his hand, her text messages open, particularly, her texts back and forth with Seth. He turned off the light.

Marissa was asleep, but not deeply enough for the sudden turning on of the bedroom light to not awaken and then startle her. "Oh, baby, what's up?" she said, rubbing her eyelids with her hands and yawning.

"You and Seth are doing nothing to get everyone in town to shut the fuck up about the two of you being together and parenting this baby together, are you, Mari?" he yelled.

"What are you talking about?" she said, stunned and terrified and got off the bed.

"Take a wild guess," he said, throwing the cell phone onto the bed, making it bounce from how hard it hit the bed, and fall on the floor.

She picked up the phone but he snatched it from her, not caring that he'd hurt her hand and made her yell out.

"Don't bother deleting them. This phone is under my name, sweetie, not yours, may I remind you, and I won't tolerate you sending romantic texts to this motherfucker from my phone, so I got into my online account and printed everything out, call log, texts, everything. "

"Al, let me explain," she cried.

"What do you have to explain?" he yelled. 

It was now that his height, six-foot-four, his frame, wide, and his huge muscles really mattered to her, now that he was furious beyond measure, as furious as she'd never made any of her past conquests. She'd seen her exes cry because of her, never get pissed off like this, and she was starting to tremble violently, like never before, and for all the wrong reasons.

"What do you have to explain, that you're still in love with this son of a bitch? That you always were?"

"In love? No!"

"So you're telling me that you're sending romantic and sweet texts to a man you were never in love with?"

"I was just..."

He screamed at the top of his lungs, "Tell me how you really feel about me and how you really feel about this piece of shit so I can leave and find a woman who'll really love me and treat me exactly how I'd been treating you till now! I am leaving and taking everything with me if this keeps happening. Do you understand? I will not put up with this bullshit! I repeat, I will not, and you know I mean it! Don't fuck with me, bitch!"

She started sobbing now, "Al, please listen to me!"

"You know, I never thought I'd say this, but you know what? I don't blame Johnny Boy for running off with this Adam-Lambert dude. He'd always been known to be straighter than an arrow, but the truth is that after leaving you, I'd run off with a dude. That's a lot to say. Any ex of yours would run away with anyone after escaping you. You cheated on him, and now you're cheating on me with the true father of your baby. Anyone of your exes would rebound with anyone after you passed him by. You are terrible. A man gives you everything he has, and you give him back nothing but heartache."

She couldn't stop crying and tried to hug him. "Alistair..."

He lifted his arms just to jerk away, not realizing he was strong enough to throw her on the bed just by doing that. "It's true what everyone's saying about you. You hate men."

"No, I don't!"

"Then why do you treat us the way you do? Why were you so cruel to John Wilder, and why did you stab him in the back so hard that he ran off with the first dude he saw, and to this day, no one's heard from him or about him? Why did you do that? Why do you make men degrade themselves to the point they become less than men in one way or the other, and just destroy our lives? I keep hearing that you never treated right any of your ex boyfriends! If it's not true that you hate men, why do we all end up so fucked up after being with you?"

"You don't understand!"

"What's there to understand, that we are so worthless to you, all men, that no man in this world deserves it for you to be loyal to him? No man in this world deserves it for you to be faithful, honest to him? Come on, I'm seeing too many contradictions. Tell me the truth. Who do you love, Seth or me? Do you love neither one of us?"

"It's not like that! Everyone's wrong about me!"

"How can you say that when everything you're doing only proves everyone right, everyone that's saying horrible things about you? Even your own mother and your own sisters keep telling me horrible things about you, and I was never even suspicious, because I believed in you and I trusted you."

"Oh, my God, I can't believe..."

"This reminds me of when my mother couldn't take it anymore and ran away from my abusive and controlling father with another woman. I said, 'with another woman' you heard me? I don't know if this happens to men less or more often than it happens to women, but it happened to John Wilder, didn't it? He had a one-night stand with another dude, and then, according to Adam Lambert's own texts replies to you, which is wonderful, he used him and then left him, and we haven't heard from him or about him since. For all we know, he could've ended up dead alone somewhere, like a rat, just like your own mother said that your ex-boyfriend Randall ended up in 2012, remember? Remember Randall? Or does he just not matter anymore just because he's dead, because he committed suicide because of you?"

"You've read everything on my phone?"

"You got that right, sweetheart, everything: the texts you sent to Adam Lambert when you found out John ran off with him without even letting you know that he and you were through, now that's really special. The texts Adam sent back to you. Your texts to Seth. Seth's texts to you. The hateful and toxic texts from your own mother to you. Everything. I am thirty-two, you know? I should be smarter than this. When my girlfriend's own family starts saying horrible things about her, I should at least smell a rat and start investigating instead of taking my girlfriend's word for it that everybody's lying. But no, you are so manipulative and so calculating that I believed and trusted you blindly, something I'd never done with another woman before, and you know what? I better run away, too, before you get me to the point that you turn me gay for one night."

 

* * *

 

Alistair didn't give Marissa the immense thrill of crying for her as he packed up his stuff to leave. She just stood there watching him pack up in the doorway of her bedroom. One more walking away. Just like her dad when she was three. Just like her younger brothers when she was only seventeen. Just like the few boyfriends that she truly loved, the boyfriends Alistair mentioned: John, Randall, and another ex from a time farther back: Chris. She'd never heard from these three men again. She didn't even know what the hell happened to Chris and to John. Randall had indeed committed suicide because of her, because after he'd dedicated one and a half years of his life to her when he was only nineteen at the time, she'd broken it off with him by telling him that she thought she loved him, but that she'd realized that she was wrong about her feelings for him, that they'd better break up and move on. It had only been a few hours since the break up when Marissa moved on by jumping into bed with another man, and that was the one pain that was too much for Randall to handle. Hence he took his own life. At least she got to say goodbye to him before losing him forever, something that didn't happen with Chris and John. Those two assholes had walked away without saying goodbye, and they hadn't even seen her sob for them and suffer from them after abandoning her. The men that had loved her that she'd never loved back had cried for her, and the men that she truly loved and had cried for had never seen her cry for them after leaving her. Now, either Alistair was waiting to be miles away from her to start wailing for her, or he'd decided not to cry at all. Perhaps people were right when they criticized her for abhorring men, all men, so much that it seemed she'd been dedicating her very life to making them suffer. These people didn't know her history. She thought her father had just walked out on her family because he'd fallen in love with another woman and was just moving out to move in with that other woman. Marissa had no idea that her father had also died after walking away from her and her family, just like Randall died the day that his relationship with Marissa ended. Marissa didn't know her father had committed suicide, too. Nobody knew except for her grandmother, her dad's mother, and she wasn't about to give her granddaughter the thrill of knowing that, either. Moreover, Grandma Gertrude was dying, so perhaps Marissa would never find out the truth about what happened to her father after he walked out.


	10. Still Obsessed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one understands why, but months after her catastrophic breakup with John Wilder, Marissa Ainsworth is still obsessed with him and determined to get him back. Just how far will she go?

Marissa thought that up until now that she had a good thing with Alistair Simmons. He'd always been so sweet to her, but because for some reason that she didn't know, she just couldn't stop sleeping with Seth, she'd ruined it. Seth had ruined her relationship with John Wilder and now her relationship with Alistair. She'd tried to end that illicit relationship and failed too many times. She was wondering if she wasn't strong enough to just let Seth go. She wasn't really in love with him. All of the men that she'd been with had fallen in love with her, but she'd never loved them back. She needed a man in her life, and John Wilder made it clear that he wasn't coming back. No one had heard from him since he dumped her and ran off with Adam Lambert.

It hit her suddenly. Did Adam know where John was? What would Adam say if she had the nerve to call him one more time and ask him, after she'd antagonized Adam? Adam would've remained neutral if she hadn't done to him what she did out of spite. He'd never really taken either side when she and John fought and broke up. He'd stayed friends with both of them because she'd never done anything to Adam to push him away, but when she pressed bogus criminal charges against Adam, she ruined every chance of her and Adam being friends again because since Adam knew what she was capable of, the mere mentioning of her name frightened him. Other people around town had told her that Adam got sick in the stomach every time they'd mention her to him, and it was totally random when they did it, never intentional. Would Adam lie about knowing where John was if she called him to ask him? Or would he just curse her out and tell her that he'd never tell her where John was? Would he just hang up on her and change his number?

There was only one way to find out...by calling him. So she did.

 

Adam was having lunch with Tommy and Johnny right now. They were about to start a new recording session on Adam's fourth studio album. Adam's cell phone rang. When Adam picked it up and saw Marissa's name on the screen, his entire demeanor changed, like Freddie Krueger himself was the one calling him, or like he'd gotten that deadly call from the movie 'One Missed Call'. 

Tommy said, chewing on the bite of food he'd just taken. "Who's calling you that's got you looking like a fucking ghost, man?"

Adam just showed him the name on the phone.

Tommy said, snatching the phone from Adam, "What's she want now? Jeez, won't this bitch ever stop?" and answered the call right before the phone was about to stop ringing. "Hello."

Marissa said, "Adam?"

Tommy said, "Do I sound like Adam to you? I've never been the nosey type, so if I'm interfering, you better believe I'm beyond fed up! What are you calling him for now? Did you forget about all the horrible things you put him through, or are those things just not a big-enough-deal for you, huh? What are you made of? What's in that soul of yours? Have you not sat down and calculated how many people's lives you've destroyed? I lost count."

"Tommy, I just want to..."

"I know what you want! That's why I'm so pissed off, because you don't stop! You don't get it through your head that no one wants anything to do with you..."

Adam said, "Tommy..."

Crying, Marissa said, "Is he there? I want to talk to him!"

Tommy ignored Adam and said, "You've pushed away everyone who's ever cared about you! Do you understand that? Do you, or has it just not sunk in? Even your family wants nothing to do with you. Doesn't that tell you something?"

"I'm just..."

"I know what happened between you and Alistair. Oh, yeah, I don't know where he got Adam's number, but he called him and told him how right he was in being so scared of you because you're a fucking monster. That's why he doesn't want to talk to you, not because he holds resentment for you, but because Adam just doesn't know what the fuck you're gonna do next! You stabbed him in the back a little too hard. You got him locked up! Who's to say that if he talks to you right now, you won't record you guys' conversation and use it against him? You bashed in his face and then got him locked up for beating you up, and you proved that he beat you up! You never dropped the charges, either! He's got a court-date pending. How fucking sick is that?"

Adam said, "Tommy, let me talk to her please," with his hand stretched out to have the phone back. "I know what she wants. This won't take too long."

Tommy handed Adam the phone. "I suggest you just change your number, man."

Johnny said, "Yeah, we're all so sick and tired of this you don't even know, and we didn't even get to know her that well, man!"

Adam said, "Hello."

Marissa said, sobbing, "Adam, please hear me out, man. I just wanna know where John is."

Adam said, "What makes you think I know that? Like you, I haven't heard from him in months. He wants nothing to do with any of us. He dumped you after you cheated on him and lied to him about the baby being his, he used me, you know? He's moving on, starting a new life wherever he is."

"I know you know where he is!"

"Marissa, no I don't, and I wouldn't tell you even if I did. Want my advice? Even if you locate him, he's not taking you back this time. If he wanted to be with you, he would've gotten back with you months ago and you wouldn't have gone through what you did with this guy, Alistair or whatever his name is. I'm sick and tired of your boyfriends calling my phone and getting me involved in your bullshit. Leave me alone. Act like we never met." He hung up.

 

* * *

 

A while later, Marissa was talking to Seth in the dining room of his house, crying like she'd had few times before. Before today, she had cried like this out of frustration the few times that she didn't get her way. Now, she was crying for the same reason she did way back when her father abandoned her and her mother when she was three--over a man.

Make that over two men. Adam and John.

Seth said, "What do you want me to do? Adam doesn't know that I punched your face in to help you frame him for the same thing, but that doesn't make any difference. Just because I stabbed John in the back, Adam believes I'm capable of doing that to him, too! I have no influence over Adam. If I call Adam, he'll hang up on me before taking the call, and if he takes the call and hears me asking him about John, he'll just block my number."

"I know he knows where John is!"

"I know that, too, but I repeat, what do you want me to do? You have to ask the right person to do this, someone in this whole group of friends that Adam Lambert still trusts, and I am not that person and I will never be again, understand? Something you seem to have forgotten about Adam Lambert is that when he's done with you, he's done forever. When he breaks up his relationship with someone, unless that person's his family, that relationship is finished for-ever."

"Who is that person? Who is the one person that refused to lie about the fact my baby could be yours and not John's? Think, Seth, think! There is one person that still kept the truth from John, but it was because we forced him to. Think! That's the person that has to call Adam to try to persuade him or her to reveal where John is!"

"I know who that person is. I just want to know why you want to talk to John. Why do you insist on getting back with an ex who would never in his right mind get back with you? Don't you think that if John Wilder wanted you back, he would be here? Think about it! If John Wilder hadn't fallen out of love with you, you wouldn't have even gone out, met Alistair, and brought him home with you, starting a genuine relationship with him!"

"You're right. I do want John back."

"Tell me why, when I am right here and I love you much more than he ever did."

"Why do you think you love me more than he did?"

"Because I am the only man who's willing to put up with what John and Alistair refused to. I'm the only man who's willing to accept the situation of you sleeping with multiple men. I'd never done this for any other woman. Still I am so in love with you that knowing who you are, and even though I've always known that you're incapable of being loyal to a man, I still love you exactly the way you are, and I wouldn't change you even if I had the chance to. I want you. John doesn't, and he's made it very clear by going God knows where just so you can't follow him to wherever he is!"

"Do you really believe that's why John disappeared?"

"What other justifiable reason would there be? Why do you believe he's still in touch with Adam despite there not being any evidence whatsoever of the opposite? We know they've been in touch, Marissa. We just can't prove it. Why do you think he wants to keep Adam in his life and live his life like he never met you? Tell me something. Has he contacted you online?"

"No. I've done searches on the name 'John Raphael Wilder' online. Multiple profiles. None with my ex's real picture as his avatar. If John has a profile online be it Facebook, Twitter or whatever, it's under a false name. He's trying to make himself undetectable. Off the radar."

"Exactly! Who is he trying to run away from? I can give you a clue. It's not the cops. Why would he run away from the cops if besides a few tickets for different driving violations, he's got nothing? We have been looking him up. He's not a fugitive, and you and I both know he doesn't have anything to hide from the cops in the first place."

With her head down, Marissa admitted, "It's me he's trying to run away from, and he's being so careful he won't even contact our friends that we both have in common--except Adam Lambert."

"That's correct. He knows that if he contacts any of our friends in common, it's gonna get back to you no matter how that person tries to hide it."

"What if John has forgiven Alan and keeps in touch with him, though? Will Alan tell us where he is if they're in touch and we ask him? Alan never stopped talking to me."

 

* * *

 

Marissa called Alan Gillespie on his cell phone.

Alan was cooking for his three-year-old-son, Holden right now. His wife, Beth would be home from work any minute now. Beth started her work day at nine, finished it at five, and Alan started it and finished it two hours earlier just to be able to be home to pick up Holden from school. Marissa had kept her number private from Alan, doubtful he'd take her call, so feeling strange about this so-called unknown caller, Alan answered the call. "Hello."

"Alan, it's me."

"Why would you call me private, Marissa?" he asked, stirring the pot, almost done with the homemade chicken-noodle soup that Holden had asked him to make for everyone, his mom's favorite comfort food.

"Because I didn't know if you wanted to talk to me."

"That's what I'm asking, why would I not want to? Come on. I'm busy, and I have no time to play these games with anyone, especially not you."

"So you are mad at me."

"I wasn't mad, but I am starting to get aggravated, yes, because you know me for long enough to know that being called private is one of my pet peeves. Can you tell me what it is you need and stop wasting my time?"

Marissa kept quiet for a few minutes and when she was about to speak...

Alan interrupted her saying, "Hello! Do you have something to say or did you just call to--"

She interrupted him. "I want to know if you'd be willing to convince Adam to tell you where John is."

Alan just hung up. The last thing he needed was to continue to be involved in this bullshit that in reality had anything to do with him just because he was Marissa, Adam and John's friend, and for no other reason. He had been completely disconnected from Adam Lambert, knowing for a fact that Adam never reestablished his relationships with people that had betrayed him in the past. What was the use of telling her what he knew to be the truth if Marissa was so delusional and so obsessed with John that she wouldn't believe him anyway? He had much-more important things to do.

* * *


	11. Harassed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam and John become all-out paranoid when Marissa does something that makes it clear that she won't stop harassing them as long as she's able to find them on the Internet. They acquire new personalities online with the sole purpose of trying to escape the psycho.

John contacted Adam via private message on twitter again, but it wasn't to send him another love letter, at least not now, but to rather give him some advice that he knew would keep his and Adam's secret safe. John was working as a computer technician when he used to live in the United States, and he knew what someone was capable of doing when he or she was desperate enough to get something he or she wanted that she couldn't obtain any other way--hacking a computer that didn't belong to him or her, and Marissa had an IQ of 140. Her intelligence was one of the tools that would always help her get exactly what she wanted when she wanted it badly enough.

He wrote, 'Hey, babe, you do remember I was a computer technician, right? Right now I'm going to school to see if I can get a...'

He ran out of space and wrote another message, 'Degree for that here. I mention it for you to get a hint...'

Next message was, '...that Marissa is desperate enough to hack into your social networking accounts, so please delete every...'

Next message was, 'PM that we've ever sent to one another. She won't try to hack into this twitter because...'

Then he wrote, '...she doesn't know anything about it. She hasn't found me yet. Just some advice...'

He continued, '...if you want to archive my love letters, do what I do, print them out and then delete them...'

He wrote, '...everywhere you have them stored electronically. That's all for now and I really hope that...'

He wrote, '...you get these PM's before she hacks into your twitter and gets all our correspondence back and forth.'

He finished, for now, by saying, '...bye and have a day as nice as the ones I've been having thinking about you.'

* * *

Luckily for John and unfortunately for Marissa, Adam went through all of his newest PM's from everyone that had sent him a PM that day, two hours later, when he had a small break. Private messaging was Adam's way of getting random offers of new collaborations from different legends of the music biz who didn't have his cell-phone number or any other more-private means of getting in touch with him. So far he'd gotten offers from two megastars. When he went through John's private messages, he noticed they'd been written in a desperate tone, and he even pictured John crying as he was composing those messages, just for a few seconds there. He thought, Oh, my goodness, and then started composing his replies.

He wrote, 'You might be just as brilliant as she is because I never thought she'd be desperate enough to go that far.'

His second reply was, 'You're right. I'm going to print out everything you send me and then delete everything from my little 'Twitter in-box', OK?'

His third and final PM for now read, 'Take care. I love you. I hope you're getting all the love and affection I can't give you.'

Then, he printed out all the love letters that John had sent him from his wireless, minuature printer, and took his time to delete all of the correspondence from John's incognito Twitter account from his private-message inbox. Finally, he took all the print-outs, organized him according to date they were sent, punched holes in the edges of the print-outs and stored them in a random one-and-a-half-inch three-ring-binder he always carried with him for ideas for new songs, not imagining for that moment in which all that he thought about was to save these beautiful love letters, that they could serve him as inspiration for new songs.

He sent one final private message for today saying, 'I archived everything I ever got from your twitter account. Took a while. Love you', and got into his Twitter settings just to change his password. When he was done, he signed out of his twitter page.

* * *

Three weeks later, Marissa had paid a computer hacker just to get into Adam Lambert's twitter account. She knew what she had to do, always the smartest one when it mattered the most to her, just not how to do it, so she paid this guy she'd just found on craigslist $1,000 to do it--her life savings at the moment.

She'd just wasted her money because the job had gotten done, but she didn't get the results she was expecting. There was nothing that she could use against Adam Lambert on his private-message-inbox. Adam had deleted everything that any enemy hacker could use against him found in his PM's.

Someone had tipped him off about how far she would go to be able to locate John, Marissa realized. The question was whom.

Marissa was back at square one now.

* * *

Adam sent a tweet to Kristina Nazario that day, saying, 'Do you have a few minutes to talk on PM?' 

And a second one saying, 'I'm online right now', and proceeded to delete both tweets right before his almost four million followers he had by now could even read them.

Kristina replied five minutes later saying, 'Sure', and proceeded to delete that tweet, too, as soon as she sent it. Then she waited for Adam to start writing her.

She didn't have to wait long.

Adam wrote, 'I need to ask a huge favor of you, doll. I want you to make me an incognito Twitter account. Someone hacked into mine, and it's a lethal enemy...'

His second message read, '...not just a random 'hater' from the outside looking in doing this to aggravate me'.

She responded, 'I'm gonna make you a new email address and that twitter right now. BRB'.

Adam waited for Kristina to write him back with the new information: names and passwords of the new email and twitter accounts. Adam didn't want to use his or Kristina's cell phone numbers to create the new incognito Twitter account.

Kristina came back with the information less than ten minutes later. 

Adam wrote everything down and deleted that private message, too. Then he replied, 'Thank you. You don't know what you've just done for me. You'll be repaid,', and deleted that PM again, changing his password once again before signing out for now.

* * *

John received a tweet to his incognito account from Adam's brand-new incognito Twitter account, requesting a follow just so they could PM back and forth. His entire body became soaked with sweat thinking this was Marissa who had finally found his fake Twitter profile. Just to get it over with and hear her out to disconnect himself from her once and for all, he followed that account and tweeted, 'I just followed you and I'm on PM right now'.

Adam received the tweet, deleted it, and when John thought he'd gotten it, he did the same thing from his end. Then he started talking to John through private message. 'Hey, babe, this is Adam.'

John replied, 'I can't see you. Prove this to me'.

Adam sent him a link from a video-chat website requesting a new session. John clicked the link and signed up from a new incognito account just to start the session and know if this was Adam Lambert contacting him indeed. When the procedure was done and they were connected, John saw those eyes that were beautiful and unmistakeable to him, and his heart literally skipped a beat. Adam said, "Hi."

John waved at him from his webcam.

Adam said, "I just did this to prove to you that this new twitter account was me. Let's get disconnected."

Both men got disconnected from the chat, signed on to their incognito Twitter accounts simultaneously, and started exchanging private messages again.

Adam typed a message saying, 'So you are going back to school to get your degree to be a computer tech over there?'

John typed, 'It's not what I wanna do to be honest, but I can see she's still pursuing me and I won't feel safe till she stops'.

Adam said, 'That's just it. I haven't known her all my life, but I know her well enough to know she won't stop.'

John typed, 'I just wanna be with you again, man. I never thought I'd fall in love with you.'

Adam typed, 'I wanna be with you, too, but we have to stay apart so that you're safe. If you come back here...'

He ran out of characters and had to write another message. '...just to be with me, something horrible's gonna happen to you. Too many motherfuckers are angry, capable of killing, so...'

He ran out of message again. 'You have to stay where you are and stay off the radar. Not saying they'll never 'get over it', but they're still too angry right now, only getting angrier.'

John typed, 'I guess we'll just have to wait, but I swear when I get my hands on you again, I won't let you go.'

They finished the conversation, and since there were no handwritten love letters to print out and archive, just to be safe, they deleted all of those private messages from each other's end and signed out.

 

* * *

 

Adam got a phone call from Alan. Alan wanted to talk to him too bad. He had something to say that he just couldn't keep it in or he knew he'd go crazy.

Contrary to what Alan thought Adam would do when Adam saw his name on the display screen, Adam took Alan's phone call. "Hello, Alan."

"Listen, man, I know I'm one of the last people you want to hear from right now, but..."

Adam interrupted his thought, saying, "If that were so I wouldn't have taken your call. Say what's on your mind. I'm listening."

"I just want to apologize for keeping from John the truth about his baby. I say this because you're the only one who had the balls to tell him the truth disregarding the consequences for it, and look at all the shit you've been through just for being loyal to John, something I proved not to be."

"I've been through a lot, yes, and I even almost lost my career over this whole fiasco, something that I really had nothing to do with, but you know something? I'd do it all again, because John is the kind of friend that deserves unlimited loyalty and for his friends to be capable of doing anything for love of him."

"He's been a great friend for all of us, and I messed up. I know."

"I can tell your apology is sincere. That's why I didn't shut you out like John and I did all these other traitors, because I know you're different, and I believe you had a powerful reason for not coming forward with the truth even though you'd known it a lot longer than I did."

"That's why I give you mad props, because you opened the can of worms the instant you found out."

"It doesn't matter now. I know you're a good man, so let's give this friendship one more try, huh?"

"If you wanna know, I haven't heard from John."

Adam said, "You deserve loyalty and for the right thing to be done for you, too, so I'm gonna tell you the truth. I just want you to promise me you'll keep this secret until it comes out in some other weird way. Marissa Ainsworth and her clan turned out to be much more dangerous than we all thought, and I don't want the claws of those crows all over you, understand?"

"Tell me the truth. I promise whatever secret this is, it won't come out because of me. My lips are sealed."

Adam told a half truth. "Unlike you, I have heard from John Wilder. We write one another back and forth, snail mail, once a month at least."

Alan said, "I needed for this to be confirmed, but to be honest I kinda had a hunch that you were still in touch," looking around him to make sure no one was in range close enough to eavesdrop. "It would've been horrible for a beautiful friendship to end just like that, all because of this heinous bitch Marissa Ainsworth that I regret even ever crossing paths with. She's disgusting.

* * *


	12. Looking for New Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alistair, Marissa Ainsworth's ex boyfriend, enters the home of two people that he's never met before, Alan and Beth Gillespie, looking for new friends to talk to because his family members don't understand why the wounds that Marissa cut into his skin are still open. What will happen then?

Alan was sitting out in his dining room at midnight that night. His wife and son were in bed now, and his dining-room light was on. He'd kept from his wife everything that happened because he was unsure about how she felt about Marissa, if they two were friends or as big enemies as Marissa and Alan now were, and Alan didn't want his own wife stabbing him in the back, so even though he knew it was the wrong thing to do, to keep a deadly secret from his wife, he had to do it. Too many lives were at steak and he really had no other choice. The coffee maker was making another batch of coffee, six out of its maximum capacity of twelve cups this time, and Alan was planning to have those six cups of coffee, all of them. He needed to go to work tomorrow morning and since he couldn't stop thinking about Adam, John and Marissa that night, he knew he didn't need coffee to keep him awake all night long anyway. All that he needed those six cups of coffee for was for them to keep him from feeling groggy and sleepy all day tomorrow so he could be productive and get his work done. He knew that drinking 100 cups of coffee one after the other in a short amount of time could kill someone, the excessive caffeine, but not the caffeine from only six cups of coffee.

Someone rang the bell. Praying it wasn't Marissa or any of her cohorts, Alan got up, left the dining room, and walked until he got to the front door. Before opening it, he looked through the little 'eye' of the door that let the person that was opening the door see the visitor from the other side before opening the door. This was someone he didn't know, but at least it wasn't Marissa Ainsworth or any of the former best friends he kicked to the curb and were now so angry with him they could kill him, so crossing his fingers, he opened the door and said, "Hello. How can I help you?"

Alistair went in. "Are you Mr. Alan Gillespie?"

"Yes, I am."

"I am Alistair, Marissa's latest ex-boyfriend. May I come in?"

"If you're an ex-boyfriend and not still her boyfriend, yes, you may come in. We don't know each other and if you came over to my house it's because what you have to say to me is important." Alan made way for Alistair to come in and when Alistair went in, Alan closed the door behind him. "What did you want to talk to me about, Alistair?"

"I just came to warn you to watch your back because Marissa is one angry bitch whose anger is turning her outright psychotic and fucking dangerous, more dangerous by the day. What I know, I don't know it because I've kept in touch with her. I've cut off all communication since we broke up. I know what I know because I've heard it from other friends that she and I have in common, friends that I met through her, and it doesn't look good for any of you guys. She blames you, this guy Adam Lambert, me, and everyone that's surrounded her for the past few months for all of her misfortune."

"She can blame anyone she wants to, but the truth is the only person to blame for everything Marissa Ainsworth has been through is herself. She lied, she manipulated, she kept secrets that should've never been kept because she knew the things she was doing are things that you don't do to anyone, and she expected all of her friends that knew her darkest secret to keep it for her. I don't know why she won't leave everyone the fuck alone and get with Seth and be happy with him. Of all the men she's been with, Seth is the only one who's so in love with her that he's the only one who's willing to put up with all her bullshit."

"I'm on her black list, too."

"I imagined you would be ever since I found out you made the fatal mistake of sleeping with her. All of the men that get into her bedroom and under her sheets wind up fucked up like no one would believe."

"And I told her all this straight up the night I broke up with her."

"Kudos!" Alan said, smiling. "You did? Let's high-five!"

They did a high-five.

Alan said, "Few people in the world have the guts to stand up like that to someone like her."

They walked to the dining room together and had a seat. Alistair sat across the table from Alan.

Alistair said, "I was so good to her. I don't mean to boast, but it's the truth. When I have a girlfriend, I treat her like a queen, always. I admit my relationships have ended for different reasons, so I'm not perfect, and I have lost quite a few relationships, but when I start a relationship with a woman, I give her everything I have and more, just to convince her to stay by my side."

"No disrespect meant, man, but with all honesty, I think that's a problem."

"How?"

"My coffee just finished being made," Alan said, getting up again and leaving the dining room. "I am still listening because I'll be right here in the kitchen. Want some coffee?"

"No, thank you. Some other time. It's almost twelve thirty and I want to sleep tonight."

Alan was serving himself his first cup of coffee of the night. He thought he'd have to share it with his visitor, but Alistair didn't want any, so it was all for him after all.

Alistair said, "Caffeine keeps me up all night long when I have a serving after three o'clock in the afternoon, always, so I try to have my last cup of coffee for the day by two o'clock in the afternoon."

Alan said, walking back to the dining room with his cup of coffee in his left hand, and then sitting down again, "I intend to stay up all night, so I just made coffee a few minutes after midnight and I plan to finish the whole carafe worth."

"Must be having it rough. What time did you go to sleep tonight, that in the end you realized you wouldn't be able to, so you just got up at midnight and made six cups of coffee for you to finish by sunrise tomorrow?"

"Oh, my God, you're too good. How do you know all that?"

"I've been through this too many times for me not to recognize the signs. My mind is restless when I am obsessed with or worried about someone or something."

"Who are you in reality, my clone I didn't know about?" Alan laughed. "I'm the same way!"

"Many people share traits that help bring them closer and start a friendship. I came over as soon as I found out about you through Facebook because I needed someone that understands why I can't get over still what happened between me and Marissa." 

It took Alan just three sips to finish his first cup of coffee.

"My friends and family criticize me all the time for not moving on from her like I moved on from all my other failed relationships. I just thought, as Marissa's former friend that you are, that we would 'click' and that you'd understand."

"Not that I've ever been through anything like that with a woman because my wife and I have been married for eleven years and we have a son together, very happy together so far, but I've been around that viper, so I do understand, more than I'd like."

Beth went to the dining room. She was wearing a two-piece set of pajamas and underwear underneath. She didn't like walking around the house in sleepwear like robes or thin nightgowns. Her parents had instilled this custom in her since she was four. She asked, "Is something wrong, honey?" and looked to the other side, noticed Alistair and said, "Hello."

Alistair gave her a friendly smile.

"Beth, this is Alistair. Alistair, this is my wife, Beth Gillespie. Alistair and I just met, honey. He found out about me through Facebook and I'm guessing someone gave him my home address so he decided to come over and talk to me. I'm glad you're up. One more friend for Alistair to make. That's what he's looking for he just said, friends who'd understand better than his own family what he's going through."

She took the chair in the dining room that was right next to Alan's and she and Alistair shook hands. She said, "It's nice to meet you, Alistair. Who are you and how are you connected to us? How did you find our home address."

Alistair didn't want to be shady, so he told the truth. "I am Marissa Ainsworth's ex boyfriend that she had after John Wilder, and our friend in common, Rachel Woodward, gave me your home address."

"Rachel Woodward and Alan have been friends since the seventh grade," Beth said, smiling. "We imagined we'd meet someone linked to Marissa through her. From her giving you our home address for you to just show up here and talk to us at this time of night, that could indicate that Rachel and Marissa are not the best of friends anymore. Am I right?"

Alistair sighed. "You are, unfortunately. Rachel told me that Marissa has been sleeping with her boyfriend."

Beth commented, "I had no idea Rachel and Seth were ever dating."

Alistair said, "Please don't take this as a disrespectful remark, Mrs. G, because that's not how I intend it to come out, but do you really think that Seth is the only man Marissa's sleeping with right now? It's not like she's sleeping with every man in town, but that I've heard of, she's sleeping with three dudes at the same time. That's that I heard of. There could be more."

Beth said, "Now I know my feelings for Marissa were justified, and I was right in believing she could sleep with Alan too, for any reason; not that Alan's ever done anything to encourage her, but knowing Marissa, when she feels someone's done her wrong, she's capable of doing anything for revenge."

Alistair said, "Yes she is. Ever since I left her she's put me through hell. It would take me all night to tell you guys everything she's done to me since."

They conversed for a few more hours and then Alistair left, having made two new friends that he hoped Marissa wouldn't do anything to take them away from him like she'd just taken away all of the other friends he had.

* * *


	13. Crumbling Under the Pressure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam and John crumble under the pressure and decide to respond to Marissa's harassment in a way she would've never expected, possibly leaving her too devastated to recover from this blow.

The next day, Marissa was sitting in her dining room, with a cup of coffee in front of her that she'd just prepared for herself but that she hadn't touched. Her baby was almost here by now and she didn't know what to do. Of all the men that she'd been sleeping with the past few months, John, Alistair and Seth were the only men that she was having unprotected sex with. The baby wasn't Alistair's because when she'd started sleeping with Alistair she was already pregnant, so it was down to only two possible fathers: John and Seth. She didn't know what to do. Seth was more than willing to step up and be a dad to her child, but she had only one problem with that: what if Seth wasn't the true father of her baby? What if Seth ended up raising John Wilder's child? John Wilder had made it more than clear that he wanted absolutely nothing to do with her, and that his reasons went farther beyond the simple fact that he didn't know if Marissa's baby was either his or Seth's. 

It was clear to her now that she'd messed up big time. Perhaps John's problem with her was that she framed Adam Lambert for a crime he'd never committed and he never would: beating on a woman. Adam would beat on another man if the other man hit him first, and she knew Adam well enough to know this for a fact, but she also knew that Adam would allow a girl to beat the crap out of him and he'd never touch her, even to defend himself. She knew that in order to prove that Adam had beaten her, she'd actually called Seth and begged him to come over to her house seconds after John and Adam left her house that night and beat the crap out of her. She'd had to beg him to do this because Seth was yet another man that was completely incapable of laying his hands on a woman for a purpose other than caressing or seducing her. She'd explained to Seth that Adam had done her wrong, taken her boyfriend away, and that Adam had to pay somehow for what he'd just done, but she didn't have to beg much. Seth was such a fool of love for her that he ran over to her house and beat her, just like she'd asked him, and when the police came to Marissa's house that night, they'd found her beaten, and it was then she pointed her finger at Adam Lambert, saying Adam had been her true assailant. Seth was nowhere to be seen by then.

All of the people who were treating her badly and plain turning their backs on her should see her now. She only ate one meal a day and went by the rest of the day drinking water. She wasn't sleeping that well either, one to two hours per night at the most, before waking up screaming at the top of her lungs after having a gut-wrenching nightmare, so realistic that she'd wake up confused, thinking her nightmare was something that really happened, before it sunk in that there was no evidence that John, Adam and Alistair had been here, saying and doing horrible things to her. She'd wake up every morning with a pounding headache and just sick of living. She wished there was a way to contact John to come back and just help her with her baby, tell him that she really didn't want him back, that all she wanted was for him to help her out. She was still in love with John Wilder and there was no use in denying it because she had Seth Jennings by her side, a guy that was totally dedicated to her and that literally kissed and worshiped the ground she walked on, and she wasn't giving back any of the love and devotion Seth was showing her. Seth didn't know that the problem was that Marissa regretted her relationship with her, that she regretted ever cheating on John Wilder with him because that was how their relationship started. If she hadn't cheated on John with Seth out of spite, John would still be with her. It wasn't like she hadn't cheated on John in the past. Of course she had, but it had been two whole years since her last act of infidelity against John. Then, a few months ago, after a bitter argument with John, Marissa went out to Seth's house to try to calm down, and it was she that had seduced Seth, thinking that having sex with him was the only way that she'd feel better. She had no idea that Seth would fall in love with her. That was what happened to people who played love games. More than a hundred men had fallen in love with her for real and she'd fallen in love with none of them, not even with Alistair, a man who'd also shown her infinite devotion. Now the one man that she wanted, John, wasn't here, didn't want to be here, and it seemed he was never gonna be here, not again.

In an attempt to get to John that Marissa knew would turn out to be fruitless one more time, she called Adam Lambert again. She knew that of all of the friends she and John had in common, Adam was the only one that John had kept in touch with. She knew that for a fact now. She couldn't prove Adam and John were lovers still. Perhaps the men had let it all out that first and last night they were together, and then they'd gotten over those lustful feelings and gone back to being friends, but the fact was they still had communication.

Adam answered the phone and instantly regretted it, but there was no going back because if he just hung up on her, she would just call back and not stop calling until he'd be forced to pick up, and Adam hated few other feelings more. It felt as if someone had put a gun to his head ordering him to do something he didn't want to do, or as if someone were blackmailing him. He hated doing what he didn't want to without a gentler way of persuasion. "What do you want?"

"You know what I want."

"I can't give you what you want."

"Don't be coy. I'd never--"

"I know what you mean, but the problem is, sweetie, that you know what I mean also. I can't 'give you' John in a silver platter because he's not an object for anyone to give him up like that to anyone else. He's a human being, has feelings, deserves respect, hates being manipulated and controlled, as does everyone, and wherever he is, he sure is happy without you."

"I know he's with you!"

"I wish he were, but he's not."

"He never will be."

"I'd rather not have him than knowing he's with you. That's how much of a total mismatch you two are, and that's how much I hate you. I will never forgive you for what you did to me. You know I'd never do what you framed me for. You thought that by having me locked up, John would just go back to you. You and I are not the only man and woman he could be with, Marissa. There are so many other people out there. John is extremely attractive and seductive. Any woman, or man would give up anything to be with him. He's just as seductive as you are. He can have any man or woman in this world on her or his knees before him, but instead, he was on his knees before you, when you were the last person in the world who deserved that."

"When you break up with somebody, or when one of your one-night-stands goes no further, you take long breaks, Adam Mitchel Lambert, much-longer breaks than anyone else I know who's gone through the same shit thousands of times, but I hope that, while you're waiting, you'll get so old and so nasty, and so fat that no man will want to look at you!"

"I weighed over 250 pounds when I was in high school, and I don't know about the guys because at the time no guy noticed I was gay, but I had more than one girl swooning over me, so no man will be disgusted with me for being old and fat. All of the men who know you are disgusted with you for having a soul so evil and so empty that it almost takes away all of your physical attractiveness. Goodbye, you hateful bitch!" He hung up the phone.

A guy was standing over his shoulder, not having been able to help overhearing the conversation. He said, "Let me guess. A rarity for any of us--a female love rival."

Adam looked behind him and then up at the guy, showing him a faint smile. "That's right." He was in no mood for flirting right now. That was actually the last thing he wanted to do. One more friend wouldn't hurt, especially right now. "Hello."

"May I sit down?"

"Sure."

The guy took a seat across from Adam at this restaurant. "Are you the real Adam Lambert or a look alike?"

"Sometimes I wish I were neither," Adam said, smiling.

"It's great to be you."

"Not when I'm off stage, no, not lately."

"Problems in the love department?"

"Not exactly. My problem is that I'm begging my best friend's ex-girlfriend to leave me the hell alone, but she keeps harassing me. I can't count anymore the times I've changed my number and she always finds it. If I weren't a recording artist, I'd just throw my phone in the river and live off the fucking radar."

"She won't leave you alone because she believes you're sleeping with her ex. Is that what it is? She believes her ex dumped her to be with you, and you're off in nirvana together."

Adam scoffed. "Yeah, right. That's what she believes, but the problem is that she's so abusive and controlling that she's harassing me because she believes I'm the only person in the world through which she can get to her ex." He shook his head. "This girl's ex disappeared. He ran away like he was a fugitive just to get the hell away from her and so that she'd never be able to find him again. That's how crazy she made him."

"I don't blame you for not telling me his name. I know her first name is Marissa, though."

"Where are you from? There's a good reason for that question."

"Boston."

"Good, then stay the hell away from this bitch, Marissa Ainsworth. She's a misandrist, and she's abusive and controlling. I know I said it but I can't repeat it enough times. She's one of the most horrible a man can meet, a femme fatale. She's one of few women that get me to pray every day I don't run into a man like her."

"...Because you already have."

"What are you, a mind-reader?"

"No. I'm just good at going from A to B to C to D..."

"Very good, actually."

"...And I need a friend right now, and a celebrity friend would be a dream come true."

"It's done. You and I could be friends."

"I'm an adult. I'm just not ready for everything that a romantic relationship conveys."

"You mean you've never had one?"

"It sounds unheard of, but yes, I am a virgin, man."

"Oh, don't worry. The few virgins I've been with, I didn't know, before making love to them, that they were. I'm a little too old to be doing that because in my opinion, that's something that I should've been doing as a teenager, you know, both me and the other guy experimenting and...but I had my very-first time at 21, and frankly, again, in my opinion, it'd be a little sick on my part to initiate a guy. When it comes to this, I only go so far."

"I'm 25, but still..."

"I'm 35."

"You look my age. I don't know how you do that."

Adam smiled again. "Thank you! They say it's because I'm a natural redhead. I don't know. Either way, I take care of myself the best I can. One's gotta look his or her best when he or she is in this business."

"I wish I were as handsome as you. I think that's why I don't get a date, because..."

"You are not unattractive. You're just afraid to be a victim, like John and I were." Adam told the guy everything that he and John had gone through because of Marissa and how he and John made the mistake of having a one-night stand, and that fact being the reason why Marissa was harassing him.

"Wow," the guy said, "you're much more than just an attractive man in his prime. You're a full-blown seducer! I'd love it for you to share your secrets with me."

Adam blushed. Even his ex-boyfriends or guys that had hit on him in the past hadn't ever called him a 'seducer' before.


	14. Face to Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John, Marissa and Adam are face to face again.

John started sending a whole bunch of tweets and handwritten letters to Adam again. 

Adam responded immediately and told him about the guy he just met, Cameron. He sent John a selfie that he'd just taken with his new friend, and when John saw the picture, he didn't know how it was possible, but he saw no chemistry whatsoever between Adam and Cameron. To him, Adam and Cameron looked more like Adam and his brother, Neil together. How could he see them in that way? Was it jealousy or a well-developed sixth sense? John wanted to reunite with Adam so much that he couldn't breathe. Rather than encouraging him to stay away from him, what Adam did was to conquer him, and now John was so hopelessly in love that ever since he came to live to Madrid, he hadn't even wanted to hook up with anyone else. He knew Cameron wasn't a potential love interest for Adam, but he didn't want any other guy's hands on him, either.

Driven by sheer desperation and fear of losing his love, John threw the towel and gave Adam his phone number, begging Adam to call him. Marissa didn't matter anymore. He had more than enough courage to face her again, and much-more importantly, he had more than enough courage to look her in the eyes and not be smitten by her all over again. When John thought about Marissa, all that he remembered was all of the horrible moments he endured with her. There were no longer memories of kisses, hugs and lovemaking with her. It was as if those beautiful memories of the beginning of their relationship together had been completely blocked and replaced by memories of suffering.

Worried that John might be breaking down right now, Adam called him. John didn't jump up and down expecting Adam's call because by now, half of the town was his friend, and anybody could be the caller. He took the call. "Buen dia."

Adam said, "How are you doing, Wilder?"

John said, "Oh, my God, you were the last caller I expected! How are you doing? Tell me more about Cameron Hayes!"

"I'm still hanging out with him, but it's just because he looks up to me so much he wants to be more like me now."

John laughed. "You're easy to imitate but impossible to duplicate, but well, a guy can try. God knows how many times I've failed in being like you. I can't even imitate your lexicon!"

"That's the nicest compliment I've heard in a while. I'm worried about you, though. We could've continued to communicate the way we have so far. Why were you so desperate for me to call you? I thought you'd have to be Baker-Acted, however it is they call it in Spain."

"I'm lucky to say I don't know what they call that here. No, it's just long-distance relationships don't work, Lambert, and you know that. You've had enough relationships to know that. That's why you and Koskinen had to break up, loving each other as much as you did."

"Don't worry. The last thing I want to do right now is to hook up again."

Cameron called out, "Same here," in the background.

"What's gonna happen when you need someone close to you again?"

"I'll just send for you. I'll book your ticket to come back here."

"Is that really what you're gonna do?"

"Yes! I'm done being afraid of the Bitch on Wheels. If we get on her face, that's the only way she'll stop harassing and terrorizing us. That's what Cameron said, when someone won't leave you alone that you don't want anything to do with, get on their face and settle the score once and for all. She couldn't be more vulnerable right now. What is she gonna do?"

"She can't move on from me."

"That's not our problem. We're not psychiatrists or counselors. We're her victims, both of us, that's what we are. I had a one-night stand with you because I knew how much it'd hurt her. I knew it'd break her brick heart. That's why I gave in when you kept pleading for me to be with you. I thought about her, and how to really stick it up to her. I'd never acted like that toward anyone. I'd always preferred to stay away from my enemies, but when she framed me for mauling her, I'd had enough. I was hurt."

"Me, too. That was my reason for doing it, too. Nothing would've driven her crazier than for me to sleep with you after I'd just run away from her house with you. She believes I dumped her to be with you, but she couldn't be more delusional, and every day that goes by, she only gets worse. I'm hearing things around town about her that make her seem totally unrecognizable to me."

"I'm gonna sound like an asshole, but people like her deserve that and much, much more. Why don't we go ahead and do that right now? I've learned in due time that when I have a breakup with a guy and I can't set my eyes on another guy no matter how much time passes by, it's because I'm still hung up on him."

"How would you react if I told you that I've been alone ever since I arrived here?"

Adam gasped.

 

* * * *

 

One week later, John reunited with Adam in New York and Adam took a small, 2 day break from recording his album to fly back to Boston. They arrived together at the airport and although they weren't holding hands or anything because neither one had asked the other if he wanted to be his boyfriend or anything, they didn't consider themselves an official couple. Besides, they'd gotten up to a bad start, having their first time together for the wrong reasons, and they feared if they'd started off so badly, that was how they would end. Still, everyone that passed them by started staring. Was something bad going on with Adam Lambert that nobody knew about that he brought with him from New York someone who could be a friend or family member?

They took a cab and arrived at Marissa's house a few minutes later. Adam paid their fare and the cab driver left happy that he'd taken a selfie with Adam and uploaded it to all of his social media accounts. He wasn't the biggest fan of Adam when Adam got into his cab, but he was a hardcore fan now, of the wonderful person Adam was. He had to buy his music online to find out for himself if he could be a fan of his because of his music as well.

Adam knocked on the door. John was standing right behind him.

Marissa stumbled toward the door and she almost had a heart attack when she had Adam Lambert and John Wilder right on her face after having pursued and terrorized both of them for so damn long, ever since John dragged Adam out of her house after she'd whooped Adam's ass. She got back up. "Oh, my God..."

Adam said, "What's with this reaction? I thought you wanted to talk to us. Hence I brought John to you, like an object, like I know you wanted me to."

John said, with his arms crossed across his chest, "What better way than in person?"

Marissa said, "Come in," breathing deeply.

The guys went in and she shut the door behind them.

Marissa said, "Do you want some coffee?"

John thought, Oh, my God, she has lost her mind indeed! Why so nice all of a sudden? rolling his eyes in confusion, but continued on to the kitchen.

Adam said, "Thank you so much for your kind treatment toward us, although I find it suspicious."

John nudged him on the arm while serving himself some coffee. He had to give her credit for making damn good coffee. Fucking bitch was great at that, too. No wonder why men kissed her feet despite everything she did to them. "Adam Mitchel, you don't know the condition she's in. It's not a good way to talk to her, come on."

Adam said, "You're right. I have to be compassionate despite this woman's lack of compassion for me. How is Seth's baby doing? Has he come over to check on you? Has he gone with you to any of your doctor's appointments?"

John said, this time his tone more reprimanding, "Adam...!"

Marissa said, "No, Adam, Seth doesn't want anything to do with me or the baby, either. He's miserable. He's finally accepted the fact that of all of my exes, he's the last one I could possibly get back with. Even the baby can't pull him back this way now. He knows it'll never work because if I was never sincerely in love with him, there's nothing he could do to conquer me, so he and I are done."

Adam smiled. "Dumped again, huh?"

Giving up on trying to get some sense into a very rancorous Adam, John just muttered, "Oh, my God..."

Marissa said, "That's right. Dumped again, just like I deserve to be."

John took Adam's hand in his and said, "Marissa, Adam and I are gonna go outside to have a little talk, if that's okay."

Marissa said, "Sure. Thank you for coming back. You have no clue of how I yearned to talk to both of you. I thought I'd have to hire a group of thugs to force you to come back in here, starting with a threatening phone call and then taking it from there when you came back."

 

Adam and John went to talk outside.

John said, "The last thing I would do is to disrespect you, not just because I'm in love with you, but because no matter where you and I go from here, you will always be one of my best friends in the whole world and if this whole love thing doesn't work out, you and I will be able to rebuild our friendship."

Adam said, "Of course."

"...But you have to understand that your words stab people right in their hearts, hard. Whether your words are nice or disrespectful, they have an effect much greater, on other people, than you think they do. She has obvious symptoms of clinical depression because of everything that's happened between her, you and me, and because no one in town wants anything to do with her, and you just made it worse with what you just said."

"I thought she wiped her ass with my opinion."

"No, she doesn't. She'll never forgive you for sleeping with me after she and I broke up, and she believes I'd always been cheating on her with you, throughout our relationship, so she wants to see you get beheaded. That's the truth. But that doesn't change that your words hurt, and her loathing of you intensifies, but she's too beat down to show you her anger."

"Oh, my God, for real?" Adam's tone of voice and the look on his face changed completely.

"Yes, because you know what it's like when other people make you feel that way, but you don't see what it's like when you do this to them."

"Like I said, I thought she didn't give a fuck."

"Well she does. Don't apologize to her because it won't work. Just stop doing it. She wants to open up, to give you and me a piece of her mind. I don't need you to make this worse for yourself. I don't want her to literally stab you in the back and slaughter you like a pig when you least expect it. I thought she'd shown you a long time ago just how dangerous she is."

"She did. I was just being an asshole."

"No, you weren't. It's admirable of you to speak your mind and tell it like it is, to not be a hypocrite. That's one of many things I'll always admire and respect you for, but keep your mouth shut for once if you don't want that monster to cut your tongue off and tear up your vocal cords while she's at it. Let's go back inside and hear what she has to say, without interrupting her, and when she gives you the cue that you can talk, keep your venomous editorial comments for yourself. Got it?"

"Yeah."

They hugged and went back inside.


	15. Fatal Mistake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a moment of extreme distress, Adam Lambert makes one mistake whose consequences he and his entire family and friends will have to deal with for the rest of their lives.

Adam and John were sitting with Marissa in the dining room, and she was talking to them about how she felt about everything that had happened to them and between them in all this time that John had been, as she said, 'on the run from all of his responsibilities'. According to Marissa, she said to them, Adam wasn't running away from her, just working and helping to hide John from her while he was at it. She told them she couldn't believe that John was so terrified of her that he would actually go to the extent of flying to a country where the culture and language was completely different from his own and where he had to start over, going back to school, in Spain, to study to become a computer technician and start working over there. She explained to them that she did all of this to Adam because she'd just lost control of herself and that Adam deserved it for daring to defy her after taking her boyfriend away from her, something she didn't know Adam was capable of because Adam had never done anything like this before, even to another man. She'd known Adam Lambert for making damn sure that his love interest was 'solo', as his lyric in the song 'Strut' said. Now, it was as if she didn't know the real Adam Lambert anymore, as if Barry Stevenson had changed his personality completely. Now, in Marissa Ainsworth's opinion, Adam Lambert was much more selfish and a little bit less kind-hearted than before, just a little bit—enough to claim someone else's boyfriend as his man without even giving it a second thought, and to her, that was just despicable.

After listening to her droning about what a terrible person he was, Adam said, “You know what? You're right. You do not know me at all. I was suspicious of how nice you were to me and John when we arrived here because I could see it in your eyes, how much rancor you still hold for me. You're delusional, too, all the way out there. Do you know why? Because John would've never laid his hands on me if he had been happy with you. He never cheated on you with me. The first and only time we were together, that I recall, you guys were already broken up! May I remind you why you were broken up? Because you were abusive and controlling to him, just like to every other man you were ever with, and you actually have the audacity to point the accusing finger at me and make me look like the evilest asshole on the planet?”

Marissa said, “You eliminated every chance of us ever getting back together! You didn't even want John for yourself! You just wanted him as far away from me as possible, and of course, Adam Mitchel Lambert always gets what he wants, doesn't he?”

Adam said, “I can't even start to list all of the things I'd have today if that were true, but if it helps you sleep better at night, then yes, this time I did indeed get what I wanted—John Wilder as far away from you as possible, because you are disloyal, manipulative, abusive, controlling, and dangerous, that's why. You are the kind of person who should be locked up for the rest of her life, either in jail or in a mental ward.”

Marissa said, “How dare you after what you did to me?”

Adam asked, “Is this when I call 911?”

John said, “She does need help, but I don't think it's a good idea to call 911 right now. If we call them, something horrible is gonna happen. I always know what's next when someone like Marissa snaps like this, OK? When they lose total control after a lifetime of having total control of everyone and everything around them.”

“So what should we do?” Adam asked.

“Let's just leave. I knew she was in a horrible place, and I wanted to give her one last chance, but I was wrong, and while I'm there, you should know better than anyone what someone like this is capable of because I know you remember what happened when you tried to leave Barry!” John said, looking Adam straight in the eyes, his own eyes welled with tears.

Marissa said, “Oh, John, I wish you knew who you're comparing me to.”

John said, starting to cry, “But I do know! She and Barry are the same shit! The only difference between them is the gender! Come on now!”

Adam said, “I never thought I'd be this afraid of a woman. I always have utmost respect for my mother and I don't dare to even utter a disrespectful word to her, but this is not respect and reverence, what I feel, this is...” His palms were sweating so much it was starting to drip onto the floor, and his heart was now beating much faster than normal, as if he had Barry himself in front of him. His voice broke. “Oh, my God, she's gonna hit me again. I know she is. She's gonna hit me harder this time.”

Marissa punched Adam in the face and said, “And what are you gonna do now? Do you know how long I've wanted to get to do this again?”

Adam lost all common sense, all control, and forgot everything he'd been taught and believed ever since he was a child. When he punched her face back, she was knocked down on the ground, unlike how he was when she did it. His nose was bleeding, but she was face down on the ground. 

John fell to his knees in a matter of seconds, screaming at Marissa, shaking her, trying to get some kind of response from her. When he turned to look Adam in the eyes, he didn't recognize the man in front of him. Adam's once bright-blue eyes, so bright they looked green sometimes, were now the darkest they'd ever been, and his pupils were dilated, as if Adam had gotten high on crack or cocaine. Just a few seconds ago, Adam was 'Dr. Jekyll'. Right now, he was 'Mr. Hyde', and that was exactly what Adam had to do now—something he'd never had to do before, not because of this—to hide. “Oh, my God, do you know what you've just done?”

Adam asked, “What, is she dead?”

John held Marissa in his arms, the look on his eyes still incredulous and much more terrified than he'd ever been of Marissa or anyone else. “No, she's got a pulse, but I'm going to call 911 right now, not just for her, but for both of you.”

“Yeah, get the cops over here right now because I just did what she'd gotten tired of accusing me of doing. I did it. I struck her.”

“I never thought you'd...”

“Neither did I. It happens to all of us, doesn't it? Don't we all snap at some point?”

 

* * * *

 

Three days later, Marissa was receiving treatment in the hospital. Her cheekbone had been fractured and she was losing eyesight in the side of the face that had been punched. She'd also lost one of her teeth, but luckily for her, and Adam, her baby was fine. Everyone knew that if Marissa's child had died as a result of what Adam did to his mother, Adam would've faced charges for murdering an unborn child, and would've gotten locked up for many years.

Adam Lambert must've made a pact with the devil and now he didn't remember this ceremony taking place, because right now, he was locked up in a psychiatric hospital, Baker Acted for what he did to Marissa. What doctors found during their evaluation of him was heartbreaking to them. 

Eber and Leila Lambert were devastated with the news that their son was officially a paranoid schizophrenic. Now all that had to be determined was if Adam had 'gotten' this condition as a result of what happened between him and Marissa Ainsworth, or if he'd been suffering from paranoid schizophrenia for a while, and if so, for how long. 

Leila suspected that this started happening to her son when his relationship with Barry had just started. It was bound to happen because of how cruel Barry was to Adam the entire time they were together. She knew that this would happen. She just didn't know when. Adam had attempted to leave Barry too late, and as if that weren't horrible enough, Adam obviously didn't get the help he needed so desperately when he and Barry had their fallout. It had been a while since that devastating breakup that almost cost her son his life, and while talking to Adam's doctor, she found out that a surefire sign that something was terribly wrong was when the victim of this disorder did something they would never do in a million years—that this was when the can of worms would be opened, basically. 

Up until now, no one had noticed anything wrong with Adam's behavior or anything strange about his daily interaction with other people. It wasn't like Adam was hiding anything. He didn't know he had anything to hide in the first place. All of those that knew him much better than his adoring fans did, they knew very well that if Adam had noticed something wrong, he would've been the first to make an appointment with his physician for him to refer him to a psychiatrist.

Adam got the devastating news. His parents were sitting with him in the living room of his mansion. “Paranoid schizophrenia?”

Leila said, “That's what you were diagnosed with when you were baker acted.”

Adam asked, “Why am I not in jail?”

Eber said, “This woman didn't press charges.”

Adam said, “Why not? The first time we clashed, she pressed charges against me for doing this to her, and it wasn't even true! Why not press charges against me now, that it did happen for real?”

Eber said, “I don't know what game she's playing, but she can't fool me. She and you, one mentally-ill person has been diagnosed. The other one hasn't, and 'the other one' is her, Marissa. It's impossible to know how her mind works unless one is one of her closest family members.”

Leila said, “I bet you guys anything even her parents don't know how unstable she is.”

Adam said, “Her parents passed away, Mom.”

Leila got up off the sofa. “What?”

Adam said, “They died in a car crash when she was ten, but some people from her hometown say that she provoked the crash, having her parents' blood all over her.”

Eber said, “Didn't her father leave her mother for another woman?”

Adam said, “That's what she made everyone she knew in Boston believe, but it's not true. John visited me the whole time I was hospitalized and every time, he would arrive with new, frightening information, from way before she'd moved to Boston. He found out the truth about her parents, and basically her morbid past. She had a horrible childhood, and she couldn't accept her real life, so she invented a whole new life to justify all of her wrongdoings.”

Eber said, “So she could be a murderer. I mean if it's true she made the car crash by distracting her father while he was driving, she might've as well shot both of them to death. I see no difference whatsoever.”

Adam said, “I don't, either. The ones that got divorced when the husband fell in love with another woman, those were her foster parents, not her birth parents, and that happened when she was twelve. She made up this whole load of bullshit--”

Leila said, “You seemed so well.”

Adam said, “Believe me, Mom, I'm shocked, too, and confused. Up until now I thought I was perfect—well, perfect in the mind, and for me to be, what? Paranoid schizophrenic? This psychiatric disorder will make my life with others so much difficult! Communication will always be broken. It's gonna be such hell.”

Eber said, “We're gonna be here for you. Nothing will compel us to turn our backs on you, ever. You're our son, and we've never been prouder. It looks like John Wilder is right by your side, too.”

Adam said, “I wouldn't bet even a piece of gum on it. Who knows if he knows how to deal with--?”

Eber said, “He was there for you all this time, since 2009, he visited you at the hospital every day, and he will be here for you now. No doubt in my mind. If I doubted him, I'd be the first to try to persuade you to stay away from him. I will never allow another man to break my son's heart again.”


	16. It's Too Much

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When what Adam's going through is too much to bear, he makes a decision that will devastate his fans.

Marissa called Adam again from the jail.

Instead of taking her call, Adam went to the local mobile-phone store to get himself a new phone, and this time, it'd be registered under someone else's name just to keep Marissa Ainsworth from tracking him down and starting to harass him again. Kristina Nazario had given Adam permission to register the phone under her name and promised to pay the bill every month so that she wouldn't worry about it because after all, she wasn't the one using the phone, so it wasn't fair for her to have to pay for it, too. Kristina stayed on the phone with the phone salesman for nearly forty-five minutes to get this done, and Rafael had no problem with this whatsoever because this was the first time Kristina had done something this nice for someone that wasn't a family member, or Rafael himself.

Adam walked out of the store with his new phone and sent text messages to the most important people to him so that they could stay in touch. All of Adam's contacts were beyond flabbergasted when they got this text. They couldn't believe that Adam Lambert had had to change his phone number again, and this time take a more radical approach to making that happen. What kind of dark rabbit hole had he gotten into that it was so difficult for him to get out of that he had to get a prepaid phone under someone else's name? They looked him up and his permanent record couldn't have been more pristine, excluding the Baker Act he'd just gone through, so what the hell was going on now? Was the sicko still harassing him?

A mole made it known what Adam went through because of Marissa, and now, all of Adam's followers in all of the social-media accounts he had couldn't contain their fury. Even though Marissa didn't have a social-networking account anywhere, that didn't save her from all of the blogs and websites that were started by thousands upon thousands of Adam fans all over the world, writing horrible things against her. In due time, Marissa Ainsworth became the most infamous non-celerity woman in the world in the present time. A million other webpages and blogs were started, slamming Adam Lambert, as well, for being an abuser and saying that 'it was only a matter of time before the real Adam Lambert would come out in all his glory—an abusive and controlling asshole', but those websites didn't make Adam lose any of his loyal fans. 

From the point of view of 90% of Adam's fans, this was something that was expected due to all the abuse that Adam had suffered at the hands of Barry, and when he was in the process of healing all those wounds, Marissa Ainsworth, one of his best friends, turned on him, and opened them up again, this time even worse than what Barry had done because Barry had been forced to stop hurting his ex boyfriend a long time ago, but it was notable that Marissa was still going at it and that she would never stop unless she died unexpectedly. Of all of the archenemies Marissa Ainsworth had had, Adam Lambert was the one that she loathed the very most, and she was determined to destroy what was left of his life.

One of Marissa's best friends, Inez, decided to turn on her, too, just because Inez had clicked with Marissa in the past because although Inez wasn't a sadistic misandrist, she was capable of all of the evil, and much more, as Marissa Ainsworth was, and when Marissa was just a few days from having her baby, Inez stabbed her hard right in the heart with a stake, by sending her links via email of just a few of the websites that had been started saying horrible things about her and displaying multiple gory photo and video montages.

When Marissa clicked on the first link, her heart dropped. She was being portrayed as the monster she really was. As if what she'd been through wasn't enough, five of her ex-boyfriends helped to upload contents to these hate sites. They'd provided infallible and irrefutable testimony of everything she'd put them through, as well as photos they'd saved as evidence of Marissa's abuse, and different audio recordings of messages that Marissa left in their voice-mail mail boxes every time she got angry with them for 'coming home too late'.

Marissa's reputation was officially destroyed on line.

On the flip side, two of Adam's ex-boyfriends had expressed, in the hate sites that had been started against him, that they were surprised that Adam would punch a woman in the face, and that something oughta be seriously wrong with him for him to do something like that because he'd never hit them. They assured the fans of these websites that if Adam had abused them, his criminal record would've been endless, because they wouldn't have put up with it, even one incident. When the host of the main hate site against Adam brought out his incident with Sauli Koskinen in Finland in Christmas day of 2011, Sauli just posted an apathetic face, annoyed that this shit was being stirred again, and the stench was starting to become unbearable, when he'd put this senseless incident behind him five and a half years ago.

Adam sent a tweet announcing he would deactivate his twitter because he was so sick and tired of all of the horrible things that were being written about him and that he was surprised with the lack of compassion people had for him despite his devastating mental illness. He received over 3 million tweets as a response, just begging him not to do that, and assuring him that they'd always be here for him, no matter what, and they brought out that if other celebrities—who had done things that were worse than what he did, knowing too well exactly what they were doing—that he surely deserved a second chance, as well, and that he could count on it. When Adam read just 3,000 of those tweets, he reconsidered deactivating his twitter and instead tweeted again, thanking his fans for all of their love and support, and more importantly, forgiveness he thought was kinda undeserved, because he had a hard time accepting his illness, and it would take an even longer time for this horrible reality to sink in.

* * * *

John Wilder showed up at Adam's door when Adam had just finished setting up a meeting with his record label to take a much-needed and mandatory hiatus. He wasn't as strong as Britney Spears had proven to be when she continued to perform after suffering a devastating breakdown in 2008 that had caused her personality to change, and had almost destroyed the career that she'd worked so hard for for ten years at the time. He needed to get better before starting to perform again, so the project of his new album was put on hold while the execs of his record label went over the notes from Adam's physician and psychiatrist.

Adam opened the door for him. He couldn't help showing John his brightest smile when he saw the box of chocolates John was holding. It had been a long time since Adam had turned to chocolate for temporary comfort, and he didn't think John was trying to come on to him, so he appreciated the gesture. “Come on in.”

John went in and closed the door behind him. “I thought chocolate would make you feel better. I've never known about you turning to drugs for comfort, and I don't think you'd use alcohol to self-medicate when that was the first thing your doctors advised against.”

“I'm not about to make it worse for me. My doctors said that alcohol and drugs do make this much worse and that my mental condition will continue to deteriorate to the point where they won't be able to do anything else to help me. I don't want to spend the rest of my life in a hospital, trapped in white, cushion walls, being sedated after outbursts. That's not an ending ideal for Adam Lambert, regardless of whether I was a celebrity or not. Even if I had remained common and unknown, that is one ending I would've refused to accept for myself.”

“Right.”

“Chocolate is indeed a much better alternative. I hope you understand, John, that I have to take time to readjust to life as a whole. I am starting a whole new life with an incapacitating mental illness. My social life will be almost nonexistent from this point forward because it'll be much more difficult for me to communicate with others. I'll be hearing the wrong words and responding with even worse words...”

“I knew this would happen. You couldn't possibly start a new romantic relationship in this situation.”

“No, I couldn't. I have to learn how to...you know. If you insist in being with me, I have to have the certainty that I will be worthy of your love and trust.”

“That's so selfless of you.”

“Selfish people lose their loved ones. It's that simple. Lack of empathy for those we claim to love...”

“You're not selfish or apathetic, so rest easy. If I were afraid of you and wanted you out of my life, this is the last place I would be.”

Adam smiled again, placed the package of chocolates on the counter and opened it with his bare hands, tearing all of the protective foil off of it. He took a piece of chocolate out of the box and ate it. When he swallowed it, he said, “It's been forever since a love interest has done this for me. We never said we'd be boyfriends.”

John said, “No, we never did, because we both needed time to figure out what the hell went wrong with our relationships that caused us to wind up in bed—the two men in the world that were the most unlikely to sleep together.”

“I don't understand what happened that day, either. I keep going back to it and over it, and the less I understand it.”

“I won't deny it was awesome, though.”

“Yeah?” Adam said, looking back at him. “Yes, it was amazing, but it was something that would've never happened if I had been thinking straight. I have been mentally ill. It just didn't rear its ugly head until now.”

“You think it's true what your mother's saying that this whole shit started because of Barry?”

“Oh, yeah. Marissa and Barry can make anyone mentally ill. It's just they subject their boyfriends to so much turmoil. They're sadists.”

“Yes, they are. I just want you to know I'm not wandering. No matter how long it takes for you to come around, I'll be waiting.”

“Same here. There's no one better for me than my best friend. I am scared of meeting someone new and for him to turn out just like Barry. I escaped from one monster, but if I come across another one, I'm done for. If Barry made it so to make me like this, I can't even imagine what another Barry would do.”

“No one comes out unscathed from something like that, Adam. I think I'm having issues, too, mental issues. Something this horrible can only be kept under the rug for so long, and then when something happens, it's like none of our loved ones understand what it's due to, but when they look back...anyway, I'm here for you, and I always will be. I'm not afraid and I'm not turning my back on you because we might be facing the exact same hurdle, so all we can do is,” John took Adam's hand in this, “face our demons together, don't you think?”

Adam said, “Thank you so much. I never imagined you'd understand. There are so many people out there who don't, and they're not shy about expressing their hatred toward me.”

“I have a suggestion. I overheard you intend to retire.”

“Yes. I am meeting with my record-label execs and my manager tomorrow to discuss me taking a hiatus. It'd never be permanent, but I do need some time off.”

“Well then, why don't you get disconnected from the Internet as well, for a while—totally disconnected. Use your phone solely for texting and phone calls. Disable your 4G.”

“That's the common-sense thing to do when one's in a fragile mental state, isn't it? No brainer.”

“Exactly. Let's just get back to a time when there was no internet and we could only keep in touch by meeting in person or talking on the phone—or better yet, let's start writing love letters and sending them again.”

“I'd love that. Those love letters were so fun to write, and I remember the excitement that would overcome me when I looked in that twitter account and there was a notification of a new DM.”

They hugged, not knowing if it was a spur-of-the-moment mistake or if this was what meant to happen.


	17. Trouble at the New Job

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam gets a new job, and just when he thinks he'll be able to turn the page and restart his life, trouble follows him everywhere he goes.

Over the next few months, all that Adam and John did was to go run errands together like they used to before the day that their lives changed forever. They were trying to be friends and nothing but friends all over again. 

This was easy for Adam. Adam had succeeded in leaving behind some of the things he did during the past few months that didn't make sense even to him. He was going to counseling regularly and was taking his medication religiously. His sleep patterns had been disturbed a little bit; thus he would go to sleep and wake up in the middle of the night repeatedly, and it was notable that Adam was exhausted just from not sleeping. He just couldn't get out of his mind all of the horrible things people were saying about him now that he'd opted to go on a hiatus after all of the events that unfolded that he just couldn't deal with. Most people that were keeping track of his activities saw what he did as a cop-out. Now, according to them was the perfect time to take a hiatus on his already-dead career, now that he'd committed the unforgivable sin of punching out a pregnant girl. Adam Lambert, to these people, was dead as a musician. He was gone and he'd fade back into obscurity, and within a few months, no one would remember his very existence. In their minds, this was what Adam had always deserved. In their minds, he never deserved to have a career in music at all, or in anything. What he deserved was to either work at Mc. Donald's or Burger King or if he wanted to make more money, he might've as well been a gigolo. That was the perfect profession for him.

In the meantime, Adam's career was the last thing on his mind right now. He didn't know if he even had one. He was convinced that everyone in the world, all of his spectators, hated him, and that they wanted him out of the spotlight or dead, so he was focused on the life he had before he even started to perform again after graduating high school back in the year 2000. Rather than spending the money he'd been earning since the summer of 2009, he got a job as a customer-service representative at Walmart. It was the job that he got the fastest and in his opinion, one of the easiest to do because he loved interacting with people. If he hadn't, he would've never had a career in the music industry because whether celebrities liked it or not, they had to interact with fans and detractors alike every single day.

Marissa was in the electronics section of the store with her newborn baby in his stroller, holding his bottle of milk for him so it would stay in the baby's mouth and the baby didn't have to stop feeding. Marissa gasped when she recognized Adam and he passed her by like he'd never met her. “Hey, Adam,” she said.

That he knew, she hadn't gotten to read his name pinned to the left side of the chest of his shirt because he hadn't been face to face with her—ever. “Yes?” he said, acting like he'd never become famous.

“Why are you ignoring me?”

“Ignoring you? I don't think one can ignore a complete stranger.”

“Complete stranger? What are you talking about? Is your resentment against me so uncontrollable that you're acting like you never met me? Can one just block someone's existence from their mind like that? Are you that traumatized?”

“I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know you. I've never met you, so I don't understand why you're talking to me like we've been friends forever and we stopped talking to one another at one point.”  
“That's what's happening, Adam Mitchel!”

“How do you know my middle name? Only my superiors know that here.”

“Stop playing games! This isn't funny!”

“I'm not going to lose my job for arguing with a stranger! If you excuse me, I have work to do and customers to assist!” He walked away from her and then walked back up to her and said, “Oh, and your baby is the sweetest and cutest ever. Please try not to argue with people in front of him.”

“My baby's a girl.”

“Cute. I hope she turns out as pretty, but less hostile than you.” He walked away from her.

Adam's manager walked up to him. “I got a call saying there was a problem here with a customer.”

Marissa walked up to both men.

Adam said, “This lady started arguing with me, and I don't remember her. I don't know her.”

Another man that had been watching Marissa and Adam argue from a distance said, “May I say something?”

The manager said, “Yes, go ahead.”

The man said, “It's true what your employee's saying. He was just walking around when all of a sudden the lady called out to him and started arguing with him when he gave her his attention. She called him by his first name, but apparently, they do know one another but for some unknown reason, he blocked her from his mind.”

Marissa started shedding tears. “This is unheard of!”

The manager said, “OK, do you two think you can just go on with your day and stay away from each other? Believe it or not, you two are causing a disturbance—minor, but a disturbance nonetheless, and no one here's gonna put up with that. If you guys have something to work out, or some unfinished business, just wait till you get home, OK? Not here. Please.” The manager walked away from everyone and walked to go back to his office.

Adam placed one earbud in his ear, turned on his phone, accessed his music app with all of his music in it and started listening to Austin Mahone's new song. This was better, in his opinion, than having to hear this stranger bitch about him not remembering her and whatever shit it was that was bothering her so much. The last thing he needed right now was to get fired on his first day over this stupid drama queen he'd just argued with. He was in his mid thirties; too old for the drama.

A few hours later, when Adam's shift was almost over, a blonde passed him by and recognized him. “Are you Adam Lambert?” he asked.

Adam turned to look at him and when he saw the prettiest and brightest green eyes he'd ever seen in a guy, he thought Whoa! But kept his cool and said, “What can I do for you?” but meant it innocently, like a customer-service representative would say it, not like a man that had fallen in love with this other man at first sight.

The blonde said, “Oh, now there's a question. Um, I'm gonna ask you again. Are you the real Adam Lambert or just a man that looks like him? Because you sound like him, too.”

“Yes, I am Adam Lambert. What's your name, though?”

“My name is James.”

“James, how can I help you?”

“I don't need help. That's a lie. Yes, I do. My knees are weakening after looking you right in the eyes.”

Adam replied, “Same here,” smiling like an idiot, without realizing what he was saying or doing.

James gasped. “Um, I was just being silly, you know, I didn't mean...?”

“What the hell did I just say?”

“I'm sorry...”

“No, I meant what did I just say to you that you reacted like that? Oh, my God, what the hell am I even doing?”

“You didn't do anything wrong. I'm the one who was completely out of line.”

“Why? What did you say?”

“I better not repeat it. I can see wires are crossed here.”

“Yeah, I'd say.”

“Just forget it. This should've never happened.”

“What should've never happened? What are you talking about?”

“Nothing. Have a nice day.” James left and walked up to his car.

 

* * *

 

Adam had ignored the incident. For him, when he disregarded something that had just happened, it was blocked from his mind, as if it had never happened. That was one of the glitches in his brain, and one of the reasons why professionals didn't recommend people with schizoaffective disorder to be employed. This was why most people that had this disorder were receiving disability benefits. Adam accommodated the shopping carts that had been left scattered where these carts were supposed to go and how they were supposed to be arranged and walked out of the store to go to his car. Everyone was staring at him, not because he was doing something that was out of whack, but because of the fact that he was still a celebrity, and A, B, C or D-list, he would always be a celebrity, and he'd become unaware of that fact, and it was notable that he had. People were actually stopping walking to stare at him and take pictures with the cameras of their phones, but he didn't approach them at all, and it was obvious he wasn't aware of what was going on around him, at all. It was as if he'd gone back to the years in high school, to a time where he'd only performed a few times during school plays and had done nothing else just yet. Blocking painful events from his mind was his way to cope with the lamentable panorama, his sad excuse of a life.

James had stuck around. He'd been in his car all this time waiting for Adam to get out of the store just to see how he could help him. James had never met in person someone who suffered from this same disorder. He'd only seen something like this in movies, read about it in books, and read different articles about it online. To this day, James hadn't found out about anyone in his family suffering from any mental illnesses. As soon as James noticed this strange behavior in Adam, he decided to stop flirting with this handsome man and start trying to help out this man in trouble.

James got out of his car and walked toward Adam. To James' shock, Adam didn't remember having seen him just a few hours before, so Adam just stood there staring at him blankly, thinking he'd walked toward him to attack him. “Adam,” James finally spoke up.

“You're gonna gang up on me, too?”

“What?”

“I meant, are you planning on attacking me, too?”

“What do you mean?”

“That woman started shit with me at the store on my first day, and now you come at me looking for trouble, too?”

“No. My intention is to help you. I know something's wrong, and I just...”

“If you really want to help me, the best thing you can do is just to stay away from me. The last thing I need is another stranger--”

James grabbed Adam by both arms with the sole intention of startling him into being quiet and stopping freaking out. “I swear I'm not a threat. Please. I will do anything you want to show you that you're the last person I'd ever represent a threat for. I'm your fan. I'm on your side.”

“My fan?”

“Yes. You're a celeb, a big one. Don't you remember?”

“No.”

“Do you remember who you are and how old you are? Where you are?”

“I'm Adam Lambert, thirty-five years old, and I am at the exit of a Walmart store in Boston.”

“Do you remember who I am? We met once, but do you remember my name?”

“No. This is the first time I remember seeing you, ever.”

“The first time you remember seeing me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“This isn't literally the first time you've seen me. We met almost three hours ago. You've been walking around the store long after your shift finished. Your manager is worried sick. I was thinking of leaving the store when that awkward moment happened between us, and your manager chased me and begged me to stick around and try to help you somehow. It seems that the woman you just told me you'd been arguing with, it seems that you're okay until you run into her and she starts talking to you. You're schizo-affective, and she's the trigger of your random psychotic episodes. You need to go to the hospital again, Adam.”

Adam jerked James away from him. “Like hell I do. I'm not going anywhere with you. You're with her. What do you think, that I'm stupid? You and that strange lady just happened to be at the store while I was working there. It was a total coincidence. You expect me to believe that my manager would give a fuck about me enough to actually go after you to beg you to help me. My manager does know about my illness because I didn't lie to him during the interview I had with him, but he doesn't care about me enough to do what you say he did. You are with that lady. I don't care what you say. What that woman wants is to have me spend the rest of my days in a loony bin.”

“You do remember 'that woman'.”

“No, I don't remember her. But you guys do remember me, don't you? You guys are ghosts from my past that came back to haunt me. You know me better than anyone else here, and you came together to work on my undoing. You expect me to think you're my fan? Bitch, please, I don't have any fans left. Nobody cares about me. Nobody wants anything good for me. You are just another guy showing up at random at the right place and the right time, just to do me in, but you know something? It's not gonna work.” Adam walked away from James and went to his own car.

James persisted and followed Adam to his car, but by now, Adam had started his car, but his seatbelt hadn't been fastened yet. He took the liberty to open Adam's driver seat door without Adam's permission and struggle with him to fasten his seatbelt for him. Adam finished struggling with him, pushed him away, making him drop to the pavement, shut the car door, shifted to reverse, pulled out of his parking spot, and left in a matter of minutes.

Having memorized Adam's license plate, James called the local police so they could 'go after' Adam and try to help him. He was worried that Adam was too impaired to even make it home and that he'd subsequently get into a car crash.

As soon as Adam arrived home, and he was getting out of his car, there was a cop behind him, but his lights atop the police patrol weren't flashing. He'd come here to try to talk to Adam and understand what had happened between him, James, Adam's manager, and 'that woman' whose name Adam tried but failed to remember. When Adam turned around, he gasped. “What the hell did I do? Why are you after me?”

* * *


	18. The Hospital

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam's second stay at the psychiatric hospital. He discovers an unlikely friend an an unlikely enemy.

Officer Reese said, “Are you Mr. Adam Lambert?”

Adam said, “Officer, you have no idea how many times I've been asked that question today. Yes, I am Adam Lambert. Why is everyone coming up to me trying to start with me? Can't I just walk around in peace without having someone random--”

“You're on the grip of yet another psychotic episode, Mr. Lambert. That's why everyone's reacting to you this way, because something is wrong, and you are completely unaware of it. You need help. A guy called the sheriff's office by the name of James Vitali. He said he was worried that you might get into a horrible car crash because you've been running around not knowing what you were doing or where you were even going. There's footage of you walking around Walmart hours after your working day had ended, just walking around the store for no particular reason.”

“You saw footage of my entire day at Walmart today?”

“Not your entire day; just when you started arguing with a female customer about age thirty, her baby daughter in the stroller, remember?”

“I do remember that. What I don't remember is who the lady is. She knows me, though. She knows me well enough to argue with me at the store while I'm working and throw me off by getting me in trouble with my manager! When I pass by someone I know, I don't ignore them. I would've waved at her if I had recognized her, but I told her I didn't recognize her, she insisted in talking to me, and we wound up arguing at the store. That's all that happened. I don't know how this chain of events unfolded with all sincerity.”

“The reprimand issued by your manager threw you out of the loop, so to speak. The fear of losing your job on your first day triggered this episode. Fear is what triggers psychotic episodes in you specifically. For other victims of paranoid schizophrenia, there are different triggers.”

“I just want everyone to leave me the hell alone. Is that so difficult to do? I just want to lie down in my bed, go to sleep...”

“No one wants to hurt you.”

“You sure about that officer? Didn't you just say that lady I argued with triggered an episode?”

“Well, I take that back. Almost no one. It's clear that lady is your trigger. You're blocking her from your mind and trying to escape her because she's the source of your pain.”

“There's someone farther back in my past who's the source of my pain, but you can say that first person is the first dose of cyanide, and that lady at the store is the second dose.”

“Cyanide, huh? Wow. Do you think you're going to have to be baker acted tonight, Adam?”

“No, I really don't think so. I believe that someone doesn't have to be baker acted unless he or she attacks an innocent person at random, and I don't remember having attacked anyone at the store or outside the store. If I did, it's gonna have to be proven to me; through the footage of the store, all right?”

“You didn't attack anyone, even verbally. No one's accusing you of doing such a thing.”

“So then...?”

“What everyone that interacted with you today, Mr. Lambert, what we all want is for you to get help. We're worried about you. What James Vitali told you about your manager, which I'm sure you remember, it's true. No one lied to you about anything today, even the lady that started in on you. Everything you were told today is true. No one's a threat to you. Everyone wants to help you, including me, especially me. Understand? It is my duty to protect the mentally ill from themselves and to protect others from them. Your illness is worse than you think it is.”  
“Sure.”

“Yes, it is. Please don't be disrespectful.”

“I'm not trying to be disrespectful.”

“I raised my voice for no reason, when you haven't.”

“I'd never raise my voice at a cop. Doing that gets people arrested. I may be unaware of the things I do in the grip of a psychotic episode, but I'm not about to stain my permanent record more than it's already been, by getting in the face of a cop. Mama raised me better than that, man.”

“Good. But your smartass remark was indeed disrespectful.”

“I 'issue' a sincere apology.”

“...Which is appreciated. I insist that you get committed tonight, just to keep you from really doing something you will regret. You haven't done anything wrong yet, but we believe that unless you're hospitalized, you are going to. Please. I know why this disorder is called paranoid schizophrenia, because when you're under an episode, you think Barney wants to help you. I just used him as an example, but I know you know what I mean.”

“I do.”

“You want to go to the hospital with me? I promise it's for the best. Besides, forget I'm a cop. I'm your fan. I do want the best for you and I want you to get back on that stage someday. It'd cause a sting to lose a performer like you, an artist like you.”

Adam nodded. “Thanks for the compliment. You twisted my arm. All right, I'm leaving with you. May I ask you to do one little thing for me?”

“Sure, anything to convince you to get help.”

“Please call John Wilder for me.” Adam dictated John's phone number to Officer Reese, and the officer wrote it down in his little notepad. In the meatime, Adam continued on to go to the police patrol, stand by it and wait there for the officer. 

The officer said a few words to John over the phone, cut the call, and went to his patrol, helping Adam get in on the backseat and driving away a few minutes later.

 

* * *

Two days after Adam arrived at the hospital, John went to visit him again.

Adam's nurse went into his room to tell Adam he had a visitor. Adam walked out of his room with the nurse and saw John standing by the visitors' chairs in the activity room. The two men avoided physical contact. Adam had been given instructions to avoid it when he was admitted to this hospital for the first time. “What's going on outside?”

“Nothing you'd think you're missing out on.”

“I'm out of the job, aren't I?”

“No, you're not. Brandon says you have one week off when you leave here. He knows about everything that happened after he called you out for arguing with Marissa, and he expects you back at Walmart later this month. He explained to me that he contemplated firing you because you were being belligerent, but that he reconsidered when he knew what had happened afterwards. He saw the footage of you walking around the store like a zombie.”

“I hadn't been told until now I was wandering around 'like a zombie'.”

“We saw the footage and that's what you were acting like, Adam.”

“Is Marissa content with everything that's happened or is she gonna continue messing with me?”  
“Adam, I'm gonna be honest. That woman is never gonna stop. The only way you'll ever be able to escape from her is to leave Boston and not come back, ever.”

“Won't you miss me if I do that?”

“I won't have to because I'm planning on following you wherever you'd go. She won't let you go, but I'm acting the same way but for all the right reasons. She holds resentment against you. I'm in love with you.”

“You know for sure you're in love? Oh, no, this can't be happening again.”

“Adam, I'm serious. It's different this time, I promise. I know I'm in love with you because I really can't stop thinking about you. Life insists in keeping us apart, but the longer we spend away from each other, the more I think of you. You keep haunting me like no one else ever had, especially when I sleep at night.”

“If they overhear you talking to me like that,” Adam said, smiling, “they won't let you visit me again.” He laughed.

“I mean it. I know it's an obsessive kind of love and I don't know if you've ever experienced it with another guy, but I can't help it. It's like we have some sort of unfinished business.” He whispered, “You left me yearning for you. You really did. You mark up and go, and the worst of all is you don't know it.”

“Come on. What is this, a new episode of 'Satisfaction'?” Adam laughed again.

The patients that were around them started laughing with them without knowing what they were laughing about.

John said, “I'm serious, man. I love you. You may not love me, but...”

“I do.”

“Why do you keep trying to evade me then?”

“It's not intentional. You know that. I'm just trying to figure this out.”

“There's nothing to figure out. Just stop hovering.”

A patient that was sitting close enough to them started humming the traditional wedding song. Everybody laughed at her, but she just kept humming.

Adam said, “Come on.”

John couldn't take it anymore and gave Adam a big hug, but he let go quickly before the nurse could catch him. Then, he patted Adam on the shoulder. “Take care, man. I opened up to you. What's next is up to you and only you, OK?” He walked away.

* * *

 

A few minutes later, Adam was sitting down in the activity room just watching the local news, what everyone else had to watch. The news reporter said, “Trouble seems to follow around American-Idol Season 8 Runner Up and three-time Grammy-winner, Adam Lambert. Sources tell us he's back in the mental hospital after having a breakdown at the local Walmart store he was working at two days ago. Our informant tells us that Adam started wandering aimlessly around the store after having an argument with an old friend he didn't remember.”

He got up thinking, Oh, God, everyone knows everything. John is right. I have to be the one to run away like I'm a fugitive, like he did not too long ago, if I don't want this to get worse. He walked up to the nurse. “May I go back to my room? I need to rest.”

The nurse said, “No, you need to breathe, Lambert. You're starting to have a panic attack and I think you're gonna have to be sedated.”

Adam looked around him to see if everyone else had noticed the same thing the nurse had because he thought he couldn't be calmer. “I'm sick of being sedated,” he said after five minutes. “Please don't do it.”  
“I'm not gonna do it because you're hurting anyone here, or because you're becoming belligerent or violent. I'm gonna do it because you just saw that random news report about yourself and you may feel calm now, but the truth is you're freaking out. You're having another breakdown, and everybody sees it but you. You don't know the condition you suffer from. This is why people that have this mental disorder are disabled and later declared incompetent, Adam.”

“Are you serious? Incompetent?”

“I know your family won't do that to you unless they see that you don't know who you are or your surroundings at all, unless you come back here to be transferred to an asylum to spend the rest of your life in there, but you are on thin ice. I'm telling you something I know I'm not supposed to tell you, but I am letting you know so that you grow a little bit of a thicker skin and you learn not to let those little things get to you so deeply.”

“I appreciate it. Even if you do sedate me, may I go back to my room and stay there at least until tomorrow morning? Suddenly I don't want to be with anyone. I want solitude. Privacy. I feel like the people around me are really tarantulas running around coming straight at me.”

“That's why they call what you have paranoid schizophrenia, and I will say it again, that's how people become disabled. OK, I'm gonna refrain from sedating you for now, but I'm gonna be watching you, and if you don't calm down, you are gonna get sedated. This is my last warning. We don't put up with it when a patient's a danger to him or herself. Let's go.” The nurse took Adam back to his room.

A few minutes later, Adam was standing at the bedroom door, looking outside of it, but just standing there.

John was writing Adam a letter.

DEAR ADAM,

I KNOW THAT YOU ARE RIGHT NOW THE MOST VULNERABLE YOU'VE EVER BEEN. IT BREAKS MY HEART TO SEE SUCH A STRONG, DETERMINED, INDEPENDENT AND INTELLIGENT MAN IN THIS CONDITION. I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT, ALTHOUGH YOU DON'T REALIZE IT NOW, I WILL BE RIGHT HERE BESIDE YOU. WHEN I SAID I WOULDN'T LET YOU GO, I DIDN'T MEAN TO SAY THAT I'D HARASS YOU OR THAT I'D HOLD YOUR BODY NEXT TO MINE AND NEVER LET GO OF YOU AGAIN, FORCING YOU TO BE WITH ME. WHAT I MEANT TO SAY WAS THAT NO MATTER WHERE YOU GO, YOU WON'T BE ALONE. I WILL BE RIGHT HERE BESIDE YOU TO PROTECT YOU FROM YOURSELF AND THOSE AROUND YOU WHO ARE SCHEMING TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOU AND TO TAKE FROM YOU EVERYTHING YOU HAVE, TO DISPOSE OF YOU LIKE YOU'RE LESS THAN HUMAN.

I'M ABOUT TO REVEAL TO YOU SOMETHING THAT NO ONE ELSE KNOWS. FOR STARTERS, I REKINDLED MY ILL RELATIONSHIP WITH MARISSA AINSWORTH JUST TO GET HER TO LET DOWN HER GUARD; TO GET HER TO TRUST ME, IN ORDER TO KNOW WHAT SHE AND HER COHORTS ARE PLANNING TO DO AGAINST YOU. EVERYONE AROUND YOU THAT SAW WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN YOU AND MARISSA THE LAST TIME YOU CLASHED—THEY DENY THAT SHE HAS PEOPLE AROUND HER HELPING HER TO DO HARM TO YOU, WHILE DEEP IN YOUR HEART YOU KNOW THEY'RE OUT TO GET YOU, BUT IT'S TRUE. THIS TIME YOUR PARANOIA COULDN'T BE MORE JUSTIFIED. IT'S THE TRUTH. THAT GUY YOU RAN INTO THAT GOT YOU BAKER ACTED, THAT'S ONE OF MARISSA'S MINIONS, JAMES VITALI—HE'S A CUTE GUY THAT MARISSA'S PAYING TO CONQUER YOU, GAIN YOUR TRUST, TAKE FROM YOU EVERYTHING YOU HAVE, LITTLE BY LITTLE, AND MAKE YOU EVENTUALLY SPEND THE REST OF YOUR LIFE IN AN INSANE ASYLUM. PEOPLE AROUND THEM CAN'T SEE WHAT THEY'RE UP TO BECAUSE THOSE TWO ARE EXTREMELY MANIPULATIVE. THEY CAN MAKE OTHERS BELIEVE THEY'RE WEARING WHITE T-SHIRTS WHEN IN REALITY THEIR T-SHIRTS ARE BLACK. THAT'S HOW MUCH OF EXPERTS THEY ARE IN THE HUMAN MIND. THEY'LL PLAY YOU LIKE YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE, AND I KNOW JAMES VITALI BECAUSE JAMES VITALI IS MARISSA'S EX-BOYFRIEND, AND HE'S BISEXUAL. THAT'S HOW HE WAS ATTRACTED TO YOU AT FIRST SIGHT. I'M OFFICIALLY BISEXUAL, TOO. I REALIZED THAT BECAUSE I'M STILL VERY STRONGLY ATTRACTED TO WOMEN, BUT YOU ARE THE ONLY MAN THAT I'VE EVER BEEN ATTRACTED TO, BUT THAT'S ONLY BECAUSE LIKE I SAID, I TRUST YOU LIKE I'D NEVER TRUSTED ANY OTHER MAN, EVEN MY OWN FATHER, AND THAT TENDS TO HAPPEN SOMETIMES WHEN ONE'S TOO CLOSE TO SOMEONE. THERE'S PRACTICALLY NOTHING YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT ME, AND I'VE JUST REVEALED MY LAST SECRET TO YOU. I'M ABOUT TO MAIL THIS LETTER TO YOU. I WANT THE CONTENTS OF THIS DOCUMENT TO REMAIN IN BETWEEN YOU AND ME. IF MARISSA EVER READ THIS LETTER, SHE'D KILL ME, AND THEN SHE'D PAY SOMEONE OFF TO GIVE YOU THE WRONG DRUG TO KILL YOU, TOO.

TAKE CARE AND DON'T TRUST THE DOCTORS AND NURSES AROUND YOU. THE HOSPITAL YOU'RE IN, YOU'VE BEEN THERE BEFORE, AND YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN MARISSA'S GOING OVER THERE AND TALKING TO NURSES CONVINCING THEM TO DO HARM TO YOU. I'VE TALKED TO MR. LAMBERT, YOUR LEGAL GUARDIAN I JUST FOUND OUT HE IS, AND HE'S DECIDED TO GO BACK HOME AND TAKE YOU WITH HIM FOR YOU TO START A NEW LIFE WHILE ARRANGEMENTS ARE MADE FOR YOU GUYS TO MOVE TOGETHER TO ANOTHER COUNTRY AS FAR AWAY FROM HERE AS POSSIBLE, BUT WE AGREED IT CAN'T BE SPAIN BECAUSE I PRACTICALLY JUST RETURNED FROM THERE, SO IT'S NOT SAFE.

LOVE,

JOHN R. WILDER.

PS: I CAN'T SLEEP AT NIGHT KNOWING YOU'RE GOING THROUGH THIS HELL BECAUSE OF ME.

 

* * *

 

Adam received the letter the next day and sat down and read it in his room while most other patients were back in the activity room. His eyes became welled with tears. The situation with Marissa Ainsworth had gotten so bad that Eber Lambert had not only been forced to make decisions for him again, but he also had to flee like he was a fugitive, all because of this psycho that just wouldn't leave him alone, and now that his love was back with the monster that was shredding his skin and eating him alive, he didn't know where he was going to go from here. After having been persuaded of the fact that James Vitali wasn't a threat to him, he'd just gotten confirmation that this wasn't true. John's letter didn't get to him by itself. It was part of a whole package consisting of photos of James Vitali and Marissa Ainsworth, old photos of them together, from when they were an item, along with other photos of James and Marissa meeting in various different places on the present day. Adam crumbled the letter in his hand, but then when he realized what he'd just done, he stretched the piece of paper, put it back in the envelope it came in, and put everything in the pocket of the pants of his uniform.

When Adam finished with his last morning routine in this place, he handed the package to his nurse, and his nurse, since today was Adam's last day here, he gathered all of Adam's belongings, placed them in a bag, and turned them in for Adam to be able to take everything with him when he left today.

* * *

This whole thing was anything but a game. When Adam got picked up from the hospital, it wasn't John Wilder in the driver's seat of that car, but Mrs. Lambert, Adam's mother. Adam placed all of his belongings in the back seat and got into the passenger's seat, fastened his seatbelt, and Mrs. Lambert drove away with him.

* * *


End file.
